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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24106681">Assorted writing advice and related observations</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/J_Baillier/pseuds/J_Baillier'>J_Baillier</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes &amp; Related Fandoms</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Collected asks and instructional posts from Tumblr, Fanfiction, Gen, M/M, Meta, Writing Advice, creative writing</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-03 00:34:49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>22,180</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24106681</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/J_Baillier/pseuds/J_Baillier</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>I frequently reblog writing advice and resource posts on Tumblr, and get semi-frequent asks about writing and related matters. I decided it might be useful to collect all the useful posts here by topic. I may add new chapters and update older chapters as new, related asks and posts appear.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>46</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Where do ideas come from?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>[<a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25011148">an index and guide to all my Sherlock stories</a>]</p><p>Last updated with content published on tumblr up to the 5th July 2020</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/184173799875/originality-authenticity">Originality vs authenticity</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/188316172800/sassbewitchedmyass-glyndarling-hazeldomain">What if someone has already written a story on the same topic?</a>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. On structuring a story and other technical stuff</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/619993395452166144/a-few-tips-all-writers-should-remember">Some good general writing advice</a>
</p><hr/><p>
  <strong>Anonymous asked: Can you explain a bit about theme vs plot vs character arc?</strong>
</p><p>A theme/the themes is/are WHY I am telling the story. A plot is the tool with which I explore those themes. A theme is WHY a story happens, the plot is what happens in it. </p><p>In addition to the main themes, characters may have individual lessons to learn, difficulties to overcome, epiphanies to have. The path to those are their character arcs.</p><p>Let’s take an example: <em><b>Thermocline</b></em>. I’d say the <b>theme</b> of the story is that sexuality and romance can mean lots of different things to different people, and overcoming limited and rigid ideas about love and sex can be important in building a good relationship. The <b>plot</b> of the story is that a group of scientists and professional divers embark on an expedition to explore underwater wreck off the coast of Guatemala. <b>John’s character arc</b> involves having a long, hard look at how fulfilling he truly finds empty, casual sex. He needs to shift his ideas of what he wants so that he can be open and curious and accommodating of Sherlock’s sexuality. <b>Sherlock’s character arc</b> involves rebuilding a sense of self-value to a point where he can believe he deserves a much better relationship than the abusive one he’s in and that he shouldn’t sacrifice his happiness and his safety for his work. He needs to shift his ideas of what he deserves in order to gather up the courage to reach for a relationship with John.</p><p>In the second chapter, we already know John’s a bit of a horndog, so it shouldn’t surprise readers very much that he tries to chat Sherlock up at the bar. “John tries to hit on Sherlock at a hotel bar” is the plot of the chapter, but what character arc purposes does it have? I decided it was time for Sherlock’s character arc to kick in, so I knew I needed to introduce its starting point, ie where he’s coming from in terms of casual sex: he gives John a proper bollocking for his seduction attempt and makes it clear how much disdain he has for people who engage in such things. We are also informed that someone he doesn’t like to talk to and is maybe a bit afraid of is trying to reach him by phone.</p><p>The theme is sort of the conclusion of their character arcs and a point at which those arcs converge to achieve happiness together. In each chapter, I had an idea how I wanted to further their character arcs and before finalising a chapter I always had a think on whether the chapter achieved wanted I wanted it to achieve. Sometimes a chapter only furthered one arc, and some chapters were even just focused on exposition (aka informing readers of their history and other pertinent background information).</p><p>A theme doesn’t have to be very complicated or elaborate or philosophical. It could just be that you want to share some really nice, loving porns with the fandom or that you want to write a very cathartic hurt/comfort piece. Still, the reason you are writing the story <em>is</em> a theme, and the events you pick to serve that purpose are your plot. For that hurt/comfort one it could be that John gets shot and Sherlock gets scared and then has to look after him during his recovery. For the loving porns you might pick as a loose plot a caseless, lazy Sunday morning when Rosie is sleeping late and John is in a good mood and wakes up with a raging hard-on. Not much of a character arc there, but there doesn’t have to be one in a short piece. Could be one in the hurt/comfort one. It’s all up to you.</p><p><br/>-----------------------<br/><br/></p><p>
  <b>askteensherlockholmes asked: Any advice on writing description and expanding on the look/emotions in a scene? I always have trouble writing anything other than dialogue.</b>
</p><p>Good question! Some writers are better and more fluent at writing dialogue, whereas the skills of some others are better suited to setting the scene and describing the characters. The bummer is that most of the time, we have to do both. A scene or even a fic consisting solely of dialogue can pack of punch if it’s a conscious choice and the writer acknowledges the risks and pitfalls of such a technique, but most often it’s like a tree without leaves - it’s still a tree, but most would prefer that it was a little more than just a skeleton of one.<br/><br/>Imagine having a phone conversation with someone, and they’re saying one thing but actually they mean the opposite, and they’re making faces at someone at the other end to signal that. Without describing the person speaking (their expression, their tone etc) this is what you end up with. Descriptions allow you to reveal characters’ inner workings and the way they might be deceiving others. Let’s take an example and assume it’s Sherlock speaking.<br/><br/>“<em>The case is solved</em>.”</p><p>Without any descriptive additions, it sounds blunt and informative and the reader reaction will likely be “oh, okay”. But what if we do it this way:<br/><em><br/>“The case is solved,” Sherlock said, glancing towards the main road as though trying to spot a taxi, his tone defensive and hasty.<br/></em><br/>NOW we’ve got some drama going on! *Is* the case solved, or is Sherlock just trying to avoid dealing with it? Or is something else going on which he thinks he needs to attend to by fleeing the scene? People can betray their real emotions in their actions while saying something completely different. Sherlock would definitely take this into account and try to deduce things from it. He has mentioned that people love to contradict claims and that’s how they can be tricked into revealing themselves. This can be used when writing, since it offers hooks to continue a scene. In the examples above, the first option sort of closes everything down and doesn’t maintain reader interest. The case is done, fine, what’s next? Whereas, in the second example, a tension has been created that the reader is looking forward to seeing resolved. When betaing others, I often point out bits that I think are the emotional highlights in a scene and ask for elaboration (in the vein of ”<em>You should really milk this bit for maximum angst, it’s brilliant!”). </em>That’s what I really want to hear everything about how a character is behaving and not just what they’re saying.<br/><br/>It might be good to have a systematic approach ie to check after every scene if you have described your setting AND the motivations of your characters. As a writer, you have the whole thing in your head, but your readers only have what you have shown them and they have to fill in the blanks themselves. Many great paintings are great because detail and care has been put to both the characters and the environment they are in.<br/><br/>In films and TV, a huge number of carefully controlled elements are used to create a desired effect: lighting, music, setting, arrangement of characters on the set, dialogue… Even though we don’t have the luxury of all of these (for instance, music), it’s a good thing to keep in mind that many environmental elements, even inanimate ones can be used to illustrate things. Even the weather might be echoing the characters’ moods (just don’t overdo it lest it turn into a cliche…). If you have a particularly evocative setting, make it into a character of sorts! Look at photos, videos, literary descriptions of it and really go all out with describing it. Not all of what you come up with will serve the story, but it is often small details carefully constructed into a story that really make a story stand out.<br/><br/>If your imagination feels like it’s about to run out (as mine sometimes does), thinking about all the different senses can help, too.<br/><br/>Let’s imagine Sherlock sitting on the sofa at 221B after John has just come home and it’s raining outside. What does he see, what can he read from John with his outstanding skills of observation? What does he smell (<em>Mrs Hudson making grilled cheese? Petrichor from the rain? Dust since no one has cleaned in ages, which might make him sneeze; he might also be wondering if John can smell it on *him* that he snuck a cigarette while John was at work</em>?). What does he hear? (<em>radio on downstairs, someone drops something in the flat above them, pigeon cooing outside, a bus going by….). </em>What tactile sensations might he have? (<em>maybe he ate John’s last Cornish pastry and his fingers are still greasy and it’s driving him nuts but he can’t be arsed to get off the sofa and that’s why he was waiting for John to come home so John would bring him a piece of tissue</em>).<br/><br/>I hope this provides some aid!</p><p><br/>------------------------</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/171776170390/past-or-present">Past tense vs present tense</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/160077329965/kjsama-thlayli-rah-snapdreygon-andercas">On maintaining continuity in small details</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/160617987545/useful-writing-resources">Useful writing resources</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/163164219460/writers">Advice on paragraph structure among other things</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/175745764545/berlynn-wohl-puppyvegeta-the-stonedsoldier">The challenge of pronouns with gay characters</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/185586200840/how-do-you-name-fic-document-files-usually-when-i">How to organise story files</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/185150524765/do-you-have-any-advice-on-starting-a-chapter-ive">How to start a chapter</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/611680006339493890/resources-for-describing-emotion">How to describe emotion</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/178982429785/good-stuff">Mistakes authors often make</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/178305836175">Word count guide to different literary genres</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/186359913795/plotting-methods-for-meticulous-plotters">Plotting methods for meticulous plotters</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/186396905740/icoulddthisallday-fuckyeahdeafandasexual">Various useful random writing resources</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/175944842185/love-in-mind-palace-sventhecrusader">In fic, there are no rules</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/175199066185/helpful-things-for-action-writers-to-remember">How to write action</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/175810514505/8-words-to-seek-and-destroy-in-your-writing">8 words to seek and destroy in your writing</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/163913522010/amandaonwriting-at-the-end-of-every-year-the">The 25 most popular advice posts at Writers Write</a>
</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. On reader interaction and how to find readers</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/160053735580/or-at-least-be-honest-if-you-have-abandoned-a">5 ways a fic author can get more readers</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/160053735580/or-at-least-be-honest-if-you-have-abandoned-a">A good discussion on author motivation as connected to comment and kudos numbers</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/163164508780/list-of-favorite-things-as-a-fanfic-author">Favourite things as a fanfic author</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/178474348230/ive-been-reading-several-fics-where-there-were">"Why won't author XYZ reply to my comments?"</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/186124465925/a-few-things-i-a-fanfiction-writer-want-you-to">Things a fic author wants you to know</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/186650185945/regarding-comments-and-author-responses-how-do">"Why does an author only reply to some comments and ignore others?"</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/177631654545/how-do-authors-get-people-to-comment-i-have">"How on earth do I get people to comment on my fics?"</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/165891545770/ladydracarysao3-kagetsukai">Why readers are sometimes hesitant to leave comments</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/185602940325/question-about-replying-to-comments-i-love">Does replying to reader comments misrepresent a story's popularity by raising the comment count? (and even if it does, should we give a flying fig?)</a>
</p><p><br/>--------------------------</p><p>
  <b>Anonymous asked: </b>
  <strong>Do you always reply to all comments?</strong>
</p><p>As a general rule, I tend to reply to something like 99,9 % of comments which begin a new thread. In a co-authored fic I may leave the honours to the other author on occasion, but I do always go through every comment to make sure they get at least one response. The only type of comment I may choose to ignore are so profoundly weird or backhanded compliments that I don’t feel like saying thanks but don’t want to delete them, either. I’ve deleted maybe 6 comments during my entire Sherlock fic career; in general, I like constructive criticism and like to meet it head-on because it’s a nice challenge.</p><p>I also occasionally enjoy taking down arsehat trolls. Not that there are many in this fandom. I’ve mostly jumped in to do this in the comments sections of other authors if such infestations have happened there.</p><p>I believe that every author has absolutely autonomy to choose their level of reader interaction, and to define what <em>kinds</em> of reader interactions they want to have. Authors don’t owe readers anything — it’s quite the opposite, since readers are being entertained for free with the time- and energy-consuming labours of love of people who choose to subject themselves to public scrutiny through publishing something very personal. But, that being said, I also believe very strongly that comment replies invite more commentary and vice versa. I’m certain that I can owe much of the size of my readership to the fact that I reply to comments, comment on the works or others, promote the works of others in several ways, beta other people’s stories and in general try to participate in this community. If nobody knows who you are, how will they find your stories? Authors may have very logical and deeply personal reasons for preferring not to interact with their readers, but in general it’s a bit of a wasted opportunity in terms of finding that payoff which I assume (nearly) all authors hope for: that the void would answer back to tell them someone has read and loved what they have written.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. On writing Alternate Universe stories</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/159671448175/fuckyeahteenlock-charlesoberonn-source">AU types</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/173633853110/crossover-fusion-or-au-or-all-of-the-above">The semantics of fusions, AUs and crossovers</a>
</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. On being a fic reader and commenter</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/171701510540/a-brief-guide-to-supporting-authors">A brief guide to supporting fic authors</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/171756147500/anyone-want-to-weigh-in-with-theories-on-why-older">On older stories receiving less comments</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/178048214620/thebibliosphere-fantasymind231">Consider the potential end result of your criticism</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/189936651480/aita-so-a-while-back-i-was-reading-a-really-good">Don't hijack other people's AO3 comment sections</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/188380940760">Why fic is so important</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/613233172687241216/i-recently-read-a-fic-that-i-hated-and-i-did-not">On sharing negative feelings about a fic</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/620604729681149952/you-mentioned-how-putting-a-lot-of-pressure-on">Feeling the pressure to comment</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/179144469740">6 ways to support fic authors</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/173377356850/theres-a-fic-on-fanfictionnet-that-ive-kept">Why comments matter</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/173699372985/i-have-this-thing-that-really-frustrates-me">On the difficulty of commenting on emotionally engaging stories</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/617789332903837696/im-reading-your-latest-post-especially-the-part">Are comments on older fics welcome, too?</a>
</p><p>
  <strong><br/>-----------------</strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>Is it worth the trouble leaving comments on fic that was published years ago?</strong>
</p><p>Yes, it absolutely is! Please do. @chuckwinchester said it well on Tumblr: "<em>If you’re asking yourself if it’s weird to comment on a fic that has been up for years, that hasn’t been touched in ages, that was posted long before you were even in a fandom or even if you think the writer isn’t around or doesn’t care– The writer cares. Leave the comment. You are the best person alive in that moment just because you have something to say. Even if they don’t hit you back for a while, even if they don’t EVER respond, it is NOT weird to comment on that fic. Fire away."</em></p><p>-------------------</p><p>
  <strong>To read or to not read WIPs?</strong>
</p><p>WIPs are a thing I have thought a lot about. I once saw a joke where a reader tells an author that they’d love to see how that author’s WIP ends. Author’s reply: “I wish I knew, too…” I do understand why stories end up as WIPs: plot paints itself into a corner, real life gets in the way, the Muse packs up and leaves, an author moves on to another fandom, but I think there are ways in which to prevent the problem of the story-in-limbo. </p><p>For some readers, the reason for avoid reading WIPs is simply wanting to immerse themselves in a story without forgetting what happened between long breaks in updates. Another reason for many people avoid reading them is not wanting to have their hearts broken by an abandoned work. I, too, have been  deeply saddened when it’s begun to look like some of my absolute favourite stories will never be finished. Still, I thank the authors for their efforts in my comments and try not to be bitter. </p><p> </p><p> </p><p></p><div class="content">
  <p>I don’t post WIPs of my own work: I finish an entire story draft before posting even the first chapters. I want to give my readers a guarantee that they will find out the ending. Another reason is that posting early chapters of what could become a long story robs an author of the chance to look at the big picture - to evaluate if the story structure works once they’ve got well into the plot. It also prevents rewrites, POV changes and other such overhauling and fine-tuning. The instant gratification from comments on early chapters might also grate motivation. I’ve seen many authors get frustrated when the stories they thought were telling would have benefited from reprocessing, but they couldn’t do it because they’d already posted significant chunks of it.<br/><br/>If one day I find myself having lost interest in writing for this fandom and thus stuck with a bunch of story snippets I’m certain will never receive closure, I might post them, but at the same time ensuring readers know of their plight beforehand. </p>
</div><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. On writing about physically disabled characters</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/620607016661041152/i-have-a-tip-if-youre-writing-something-that">Good general advice on depicting things an author has no personal experience of</a>
</p><hr/><p>
  <strong>@silversarcasm has said it well on Tumblr:</strong>
</p><p>
  <em>"Like don’t make a character disabled only to temporarily make them abled whenever its more convenient for you</em>
</p><p>
  <em>oh they can’t access where you want them too? well maybe address that, that places are accessible, that life excludes us rather than glossing over it with a temporary fix</em>
</p><p>
  <em>If they can’t fight as you want us too, consider why you think that’s the only way to participate in a story, why you think other ways of helping that are less active aren’t as valuable</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Keep your disabled characters disabled and address why it is that your story isn’t so easy when we’re in it"</em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. On writing about characters on the ASD spectrum</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>Are there any real-life autistic surgeons?</strong>
</p><p><a href="https://www.getsurrey.co.uk/incoming/fixing-people-easy-life-mystery-6910686">Yes, there are</a>.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/619350119109787648/sherlock-hid-his-autism-even-from-his-boyfriend">Autism and PTSD</a>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. When a story is finished</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>When a story gets finished, there’s a messy set of emotions. Happiness that the toiling is over, exhaustion because you know that there’s still a lot of editing due, sadness because you’ve lost The Flow, depression because a new idea hasn’t materialized yet, contention that you actually managed to finish something and apprehension because only Mycroft knows if people will like what you’ve done. I like having several finished but unpublished drafts waiting for me when one story is finished so that I can believe the void of losing writing motivation cannot eat me just yet.</strong>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. On word choices and languages and Britpicking</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/125604008575/british-slang-guide-for-british-characters">A useful post on British slang</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Farchiveofourown.org%2Fworks%2F259535&amp;t=YTc3ZTUyMTAxM2M0ZTI1MGE4YTVhZDg2NTUxMzRhMDQ3NjY0MDU4OSxGVlJaSXd1cA%3D%3D&amp;b=t%3A50pupsTzPFTfHkhd7AZBVg&amp;p=https%3A%2F%2Fjbaillier.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F127467356435%2Fbrit-pick-hints-for-sherlock-authors-redadam&amp;m=1">Brit-pick hints for Sherlock fanfic authors</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/160556613905/alexaprilgarden-not-your-mother-tongue-on">On languages, writing and finding your voice</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/164070741385/british-medical-terms">On British medical terms</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/617918340579704832/what-is-your-opinion-on-using-the-doctor-and-the">On replacing names with descriptions of characters</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://writersinthestorm.wordpress.com/2011/12/02/body-language-an-artistic-writing-tool/">How to describe body language</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/620690880521781248/hey-i-love-this-blog-its-really-inspiring-and">Advice on how to improve one's language skills for writing</a>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. AO3 vs Fanfiction.net</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>[content pending]</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Why do we write fanfic?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>A quote from Chuck Closterman: "Art and love are the same thing: It’s the process of seeing yourself in things that are not you."</strong>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/130870178790">Astute quotes on writing</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/130829500125/source-unknown">Being a writer is like riding a bicycle…</a>
</p><p>A quote from Paul West: <em>"You write about the thing that sank its teeth into you and wouldn’t let go."</em></p><p>A quote from Anne Lichtenberg: <em>"Irked fans produce fanfic like irritated oysters produce pearls."</em></p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/179081883005">Writing advice from Neil Gaiman</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/158898862790/fanfic-alignments">Writer alignments</a>
</p><p>A quote from Robert Hass: <em>"It’s hell writing and it’s hell not writing. The only tolerable state is having just written."</em></p><p>A quote from Kazuo Ishiguro: <em>"But in the end, stories are about one person saying to another: This is the way it feels to me. Can you understand what I’m saying? Does it feel this way to you?”</em></p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/184594384375/from-the-jesper-waldersten-exhibition-at">Why we should aspire to haunt people</a>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. On characterisation</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Why is it that in so many johnlock stories John is described as smelling like  petrichor and Sherlock likes it? Doesn’t that most likely mean that John’s bedroom closet has some sort of a mould problem (probably as a result of some experiment of Sherlock’s)?</p><p><br/>--------------------</p><p>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/171007277025/how-to-write-a-morally-gray-character-have-their">On writing morally grey characters</a>
</p><p><br/>--------------------</p><p>
  <strong>honeybeemotorcycles asked: hi thank you for the tips on titling a fic. I am writing a Viclock story and I don't know what I am doing with Victor Trevor,. I own a copy of ACD Canon, however I couldn't figure out his character unlike Sherlock and Watson. Any tips? Is he good or bad, what does he really look like, Is he tall like Sherlock? Thank you....</strong>
</p><p>I’ve come to think of an adaptation of <em>The Adventure of the Gloria Scott</em> as a sort of a rite of passage for Sherlock fic writers — a great many seem to take on that task at some point. It’s a salient story so that’s hardly surprising.</p><p>The beauty of Victor, for me, lies in his elusiveness. He’s a blank canvas onto which an author can paint many kinds of pictures from villain to friend, from lover to acquaintance and case client. That’s why I believe that working out who Victor is must be the author’s task alone. I have many versions of him in my own stories and many headcanons about the way he looks and sounds, but I wouldn’t want my preferences to limit the freedom and creativity of other writers. Victor can be whoever and whatever you need him to be.</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0013"><h2>13. On (un)constructive criticism</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I always encourage readers to comment and I warmly welcome both praise and constructive criticism. To say that the comments function of an archive should never be used for anything but praise is IMHO not constructive for fanfic culture in a larger perspective. Flaming and other abuse is a whole different thing and should sternly be wheeded out, but I think that in terms of polite, constructive criticism we should be aiming for more, not less of it. Receiving some means that the reader thinks the story or the author was promising enough that they wish them to develop yheir skills further. Posting a fandom story online inevitably means that you wish for it to be read and seen and you can’t avoid it being evaluated in the context of that fandom’s fic quality, canon and characterization conventions. Live and learn, and appreciate the fact that someone took the time to contact you about your story! Readers have, for instance, pointed out mistakes in my stories concerning geography which I am grateful to be informed of and I don’t remove these publicly posted comments once I’ve fixed the errors because it’s all part of the dialogue. Yes, we need to promote a supportive, accepting abd encouraging culture of fanworks but saying that only praise should be public os not necessarily very conducive to that. In a way, all feedback is good feedback as long as it doesn’t have a malicious intent. (from <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/126164168295/an-open-letter-to-fanfic-readers">this Tumblr conversation</a>)</p><p>--------------------</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/169472379855/an-open-letter-to-fanfic-readers">An open letter to fic readers concerning leaving criticism in the comments section</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/187394528570/wrt-the-concrit-debate-many-many-writers-are">Why concrit can cause harm</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/190611476775/the-pen-pot-alexxphoenix42-nana-41175">A very demonstrative example of arsehat fic commentary</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/188316368625/i-love-this-blog-more-than-i-love-myself-let-me">How to deal with a very negative comment</a>
</p><p><br/>--------------------</p><p>
  <b>Anonymous asked @aocommentoftheday: Recently I received a PM from a writer whose writing I like. They were terribly upset that I had left a critical comment months ago, and now when I left a kudo or comment on their work, I was being hypocritical or somehow trying to make them feel bad. I apologized up and down, and then looked at my comment. It wasn't even that critical, just pointing out a factual error that Eton isn't a mixed gender school.</b>
</p><p>
  <b>J. Baillier's answer:</b>
</p><p>This is a tough one. Whether a fic author welcomes constructive criticism varies wildly, and I have encouraged writers who hesitate to encourage it to state in their author’s notes what sort of feedback and reader interaction they want. It’s perfectly acceptable for a fledgeling author to say that <em>this is still new to me and I’m still gathering my confidence so please be gentle</em>. Another approach would be to tell readers that if they find a mistake, could they please approach the author through PM instead of mentioning it in the public comments. If no such statement is made, I would still advise commenters to be polite and careful to avoid the situation this commenter has found themselves in. Sometimes authors twist reality to their liking because they need a certain detail to work a certain way for plot purposes. It doesn’t require all that much suspension of disbelief from a reader to be told that in <em>this story</em>, Eton has both male and female students. Not all authors put heavy focus on research and a high degree of realism and that’s okay. “<em>The writer proceeded to send me PMs basically saying the same thing over and over again</em>” sounds like the comment did greatly upset the author. In that situation it is definitely best to politely apologise for overstepping the mark and move on, perhaps even refrain from commenting in that reader’s works if they have (mis)construed your attitude towards them as generally critical. This accusation of hypocrisy sounds, to me (without knowing all the details), like quite an overblown reaction, but writing is a very personal and sensitive thing and I would never say that someone’s reaction to criticism is inherently wrong or that they have no right to it. Sometimes even a lack of open encouragement (even when there’s no criticism) can feel discouraging for an author. </p><p>Still, complete radio silence is worse. That makes an author wonder what is so terribly wrong about it (or them) that nobody is reading or commenting. It’s a very lonely place to be.</p><p>A lot depends on the tone in which a mistake/discrepancy is pointed out. “<em>You bloody idiot don’t you even read Wikipedia Eton is not a mixed school</em>” would upset <em>any</em> author. “<em>I hope you don’t mind me pointing out this detail and you may well have your reasons for changing it, so I was wondering why you used Eton as a setting since it’s not a mixed school?</em>” is a whole different thing. I would still PM rather than post this as a public comment. </p><p>The only thing a writer always sort of asks for when posting a story is that it be read. That’s all. Some writers don’t really want to interact with their readers at all and that’s perfectly okay, too. Positive commentary is still nearly always appreciated, and even if there is no reply, I can assure you as a fic author myself that it will be read (often multiple times) and cherished.</p><p>My advice to authors who struggle with accepting even factual criticism from readers is this: in order to learn to be a better writer, personally I have felt that the only way is to accept discussion and constructive criticism. Abuse and trolling should be promptly shut down, but if someone points out a mistake, take it in stride. You didn’t do it deliberately, and someone cares about your story enough to want to help you make it better. They are not commenting about you, they are commenting on your story. While that story comes from you, your heart and your opinions and your world view and your interpretation of these characters, once you learn to separate it from yourself and look at it as a work in progress, a canvas turning into a work of art that will never attain perfection because perfection doesn’t exist, then you can learn to be a better writer without every bit of commentary that isn’t praise wounding you too deeply. (from <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/184661757910/recently-i-received-a-pm-from-a-writer-whose">this Tumblr conversation</a>)</p><hr/><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/619265392998793216/did-i-just-see-in-the-year-of-our-lord-2020-on">The usefulness of the term 'squick'</a>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0014"><h2>14. Fanfiction vs other literary genres in terms of quality</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Dante’s Inferno is self-insert Bible fanfiction. Most Renaissance and Medieval art that isn’t portraiture is Bible fanart. Lord of the Flies is a dark, AU fanfic of a previous book that had a bunch of English boys getting stranded on an island where everything turned out just hunky dory.  Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar is fanfiction.  Lancelot and Guinevere are French fanfiction additions to the King Arthur myth. </p><p>90% of <em>all Disney movies ever made</em> are <em>fanfiction.  </em>In Hans Christian Anderson’s The Little Mermaid? The little mermaid DIES.  In Beauty and the Beast, Beauty has two sisters, and her father is a merchant, not an inventor. The villagers never storm the castle. The Disney movies are reinterpretations of pre-existing stories aka fanfiction. Is anyone shitting on Disney for writing ‘fanfiction’?</p><p>BBC’s Sherlock is modernAU fanfiction.  Elementary is modernAU always-a-girl!John fanfiction.  BBC’s Merlin is fanfiction.</p><p>Age of Ultron is fanfiction. </p><p>Fanfiction is natural and has happened since the dawn of time. Stop looking down on people (and I gotta say, a lot of the people writing fanfic that I know are female) who write fanfiction for fun and their own enjoyment. (from <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/126884600470/dogmatix-feliciano-the-pastafarian">this Tumblr conversation</a>)</p><p><br/>---------------------<br/><br/></p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/tagged/creative+writing/page/25">"It's just fanfic"?</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/tagged/creative+writing/page/23">Fanfic and literary criticism</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bustle.com%2Fp%2Fa-published-author-told-me-to-stop-writing-fan-fiction-but-the-lunar-chronicles-author-marissa-meyer-disagrees-9195268&amp;t=MzE2ZGE4NjY1ZjVjZDQyYzNjMzg3ODEzNjAyNDQ1OGY2ODFiMDMwZCxLZ2FFY200Yg%3D%3D&amp;b=t%3A50pupsTzPFTfHkhd7AZBVg&amp;p=https%3A%2F%2Fjbaillier.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F176258734715%2Fan-open-letter-to-the-published-author-who-told-me&amp;m=1">An open letter to the published author who told a fic author to stop writing fanfic</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/185900898545/for-reference-this-is-what-shes-talking-about">Published author comments on the importance of fic</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/171021300850/rant-about-fanfiction-writing">A detailed historical defence of fic</a>
</p><p>---------------------</p><p> </p><p>
  <strong>Misconceptions about fan fiction that I wish would finally disappear</strong>
</p><p>There are different levels of embarrassing hobbies. I am happy to share with any fellow human being the fact that I scuba dive, or discuss my penchant for gardening. To workmates and acquaintances who seem well-versed in pop culture I might mention that I’m a fan of the latest BBC adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories. The facts that I go to cons and indulge in occasional cosplay are reserved for like-minded people and friends.</p><p></p><div class="content">
  <p>The fact that <em>I write fan fiction </em>is only known to a handful of people I know in real life, and my pen name is only known to a select few who I have screened thoroughly and who indulge in such pastimes themselves.</p>
  <p>Why are things the way they are? Would I be fired from my job or disowned by my friends if I told them I’ve spend thousands of hours creating both shorter and novel-lenght stories about two fictional guys who enjoy chasing criminals and being clueless about their own emotions? No, I wouldn’t, but I feel no need to be a laughing stock, because there are many misconceptions about fan fiction that seem harder to eradicate than polio.</p>
  <p>Yes, I’m very tired of living in a cultural closet, but I doubt that fan fiction will turn to a socially acceptable pastime in my lifespan. Sometimes I actually wonder why I wish for things to change in the minds of the great ignorant public - would it make writing fic easier or more fun? Unlikely, but doesn’t everyone wish for acceptance and the right to be what they are? I thank the universe for fellow fic authors, for readers and other lovely people in the Sherlock fandom. At least we have each other.</p>
  <p>To prepare usable answers to the sorts of questions that most fanfic authors face when encountering non-fandom people, I amassed this list. These are questions and comments that most fanfic authors are probably pretty tired of hearing.</p>
  <p>
    <b>“Isn’t fanfic is the pastime of frustrated housewives?”</b>
  </p>
  <p>I am not a housewife - not that there is anything wrong with housewives. I am frustrated, yes, at the general state of things in the universe, but I write fanfic because I want to write it, not as a political statement or to make up for a lacking sex life. Men don’t get accused of watching action movies and war films and reading superhero comics because they wish to console themselves for emasculated egos or failed careers - why are women subjected to such a treatment?</p>
  <p>This all seems to stem from the historical notion that things that women enjoy are worthless, that they won’t make money in the publishing world or that they are of lesser quality than entertainment geared towards men or both sexes. It was this notion that has lead to a shift in publishing practices - women are circumventing the somewhat patriarchal ideals still rife in commercialized literature and publishing their works for free (fan fiction) or through other alternate channels they created themselves (case in point: Fifty Shades of Grey, the literary quality of which I shall refrain from commenting here). We’re here, we’re a big audience and since the literary world won’t take us seriously or give us what they want, we seek alternative means to get it. <br/><br/>Still, gender politics aside, it’s really this simple: I write Sherlock fan fiction because the series and its characters give me interesting ideas, which I enjoy putting on paper and sharing with others. <br/><br/></p>
  <p>
    <b>“That’s porn, then, isn’t it?”</b>
  </p>
  <p>I don’t write explicit sex scenes. I actually <em>can’t</em> write sex scenes. In the hundreds of thousands of words I’ve written sex does happen, but you’d be hard-pressed to find anything resembling smut in there. Yes, there’s plenty of smut written in every single fandom - some of it mind-bogglingly graphic - and there’s nothing wrong with that (as long as the content falls within reason and law). No one is being exploited, no money is exchanging hands, and in fanfic the harmful patriarchal notions that have so long coloured the depictions of female sexuality in fiction are largely absent. Sisters are taking back the night and all that. Sex is a part of life, and if literature is meant to explore all areas of said life, then sex <em>belongs </em>in it, period.</p>
  <p>Some of the best-written fan fiction stories are very naughty at times, but a large amount of quality fan fiction is not porny at all.  Go see for yourself if you don’t want to take my word for it.</p>
  <p>
    <b>“Slash is stupid - those characters aren’t gay/straight/whatever so why would you make them so?”<br/></b>
  </p>
  <p>Every viewer makes interpretations of fiction all the time. I’m not keen on taking canonically straight characters and suddenly throwing them into a queer sex orgy, but I will defend to my grave the fact that even a space monkey could see that it’s not your average friendship what John Watson and Sherlock Holmes share. The label ‘gay’ doesn’t need to be slapped on it, but I will reserve my right to interpret the actions and words of these characters the way I see fit. Do <em>you </em>shoot cab drivers and leap off buildings for your best mates? You don’t? Curious.</p>
  <p>Gay/straight aren’t even the only possible interpretations. John might be bisexual. Sherlock might be asexual. They might be heterosexual life partners. Soulmates without the sex bit. Life isn’t black and white, and fan fiction reflects that a whole lot better than 99% of original fiction or mainstream Hollywood media.</p>
  <p>I’ve always felt that the word 'slash’ is a bit problematic. If an author depicts a couple whose purported romance doesn’t really require all that much suspension of disbelief, then is it really slash per se, or just elaborating on elements already present in that fictional universe? If slash is thought to meant taking two characters, between whom a romance would feel very unlikely canonically, then surely there are also <em>straight</em> pairings that fit that description? I will argue (even when not drunk) that Skinner/Scully is more of a slash pairing by this definition than John/Sherlock.</p>
  <p>As for clutching one’s pearls at the very notion of gay romance: it’s 2016. If you still can’t face the fact that sometimes people surprise themselves by falling for someone of the same sex, then I don’t know what to do with you.</p>
  <p><b>“Why don’t you want to write stuff with your own characters? Isn’t it lazy and easy to write about characters invented by others?”<br/></b><br/>Because it’s <em>these</em> characters that interest me. If one day someone pops into my head who intrigues me as much, then I will happily tell their story.</p>
  <p>The idea of borrowing and reinventing characters is not new. Shakespeare did it. James Joyce did it. People who write librettos for operas have always done this. A great many modern films are reimaginings of old stories and old characters. As stated by Moffatt &amp; Gatiss, <em>Sherlock</em> as a TV series is fan fiction, too, written by fans and based both on original Arthur Conan Doyle stories and later adaptations of those stories. All in all, a large chunk of all literature and other forms of creativity stands on the shoulders of earlier geniuses. Nothing new under the sun, except for the word ’<em>fan fiction</em>’.</p>
  <p>Writing about characters that your audience is already familiar with is anything <em>but </em>easy. Fandom is a tricky audience. If your version of the main characters feels <em>off</em>, you will hear about it. Oh yes you will, and probably in less than polite terms. With original characters you don’t have to face the intricate rules of canon and the divergent views of fellow fans. When writing fanfic you need to have these rules and generally agreed-upon fan interpretations internalized, and if the characters are doing something in your story which they probably wouldn’t on screen, the story needs to call them out on it. Because of this, good characterization in fan fiction is much more difficult to achieve than in original fiction.</p>
  <p>As for laziness, since when is any form of writing <em>lazy</em>? We’re creating things while most people lounge on their sofas, passively enjoying the creative works of others. We’re <em>participating</em> instead of brainlessly <em>consuming</em>.</p>
  <p>
    <b>“Don’t you want a real novel published? One that would make money?”</b>
  </p>
  <p>I have a job that has nothing to do with writing, and I’m quite happy with that. I’ve seen how fun hobbies turn into chores when they become professions. Thanks to a dear friend who’s a published author, I’ve had the chance to observe what the world of “real” publishing is like, and I have no desire to try my luck there. Yes, <em>luck </em>- talent plays into it, but that alone clearly won’t get one a publishing deal.</p>
  <p>Through fan fiction, I can share my passion for the characters and the fictional universe I love, and there I have an inbuilt potential audience of hundreds of thousands of people. I have stories that have more than 10 000 readers. When taking this into consideration, what the hell would I need the world of “real publishing” for?</p>
  <p>I don’t own the copyrights to the characters I write about and because of this I am naturally obliged to share my work for free. I’d do it for free <em>anyway</em>, because for me the philosophical gist of fanfic is to share experiences and ideas with fellow fans, to connect with others who love what I love. When that happens, it’s the greatest feeling in the world.</p>
  <p>
    <b>“Fan fiction is just a writing exercise, isn’t it? Just a phase before writing real stuff?”</b>
  </p>
  <p> Nope. I suspect the work I put into a longer story will easily rival the work any “real” author might put into an original story of that length. I do extensive research, and every chapter goes through at least 3-4 edits. That’s hardly “just a writing exercise”? These stories <em>are </em>my main works, not some hypothetical original novel people assume I’m “training for”.</p>
  <p>
    <b>“Isn’t the point of fanfic inserting yourself in the story? Are the things you write about stuff from your own life?”</b>
  </p>
  <p>Generally, no. I’m not a thirtysomething British neuroatypical genius with a hard drug habit who most likely went to some posh boarding school. Most authors don’t employ main characters who are carbon copies of themselves. This is part of the beauty of fiction - you get to walk in someone else’s shoes. It’s an educational thing to experience, and probably increases empathy and general human understanding.</p>
  <p>Of course it can be easy and even therapeutic to write about stuff you’ve experienced yourself, but it has to be within reason of what the characters you’re writing about might find themselves experiencing. I doubt John Watson will suddenly start ovulating at age 39 (he <em>might</em>, if you believe Omegaverse, <em>but let’s just not go there please</em>). I have read wonderful, insightful, tough stories written by people who have personal experience of the issues the characters are facing. That doesn’t mean they are diaries.</p>
  <p>
    <b>“I don’t understand crazy fans who write those sorts of things”</b>
  </p>
  <p>Dear “normal person”: my hobbies don’t impact your life in any way. If you don’t know anything about them, then your views have very little value to me - especially if they are borne out of prejudice and ignorance. I don’t make a pastime out of dissing your golfing, your Crossfitting, your knitting or your addiction to EastEnders, because I understand how horrible that would feel. Besides, many non-fandom hobbies require precisely the same sort of devoted mindset that writing fan fiction does and that’s very cool and admirable in my books. Who knows, maybe you’re actually an EastEnders <em>fan </em>and you just  haven’t realized it yet.</p>
  <p>Fandom can be a crazy place, but through it runs a lovely river of acceptance and respect. I wish the same statement would apply to society in general.</p>
  <p>
    <b>“Can you give me a link to your stories, then?”</b>
  </p>
  <p><em>No</em>.</p>
  <p>I have no need for gawkers who don’t understand what I do, and are only looking for a laugh. I write under a pen name for this very reason. You might even be a well-meaning friend of mine, but if you’re not fandom people, I would just worry about what you’d think when I wrote my next story so, again, <em>no</em>.</p>
  <p>Sorry.</p>
  <p>Go change society and come back when you’re done and I might reconsider.</p>
</div><p><br/>----------------------<br/><br/><a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/158776353065/hello-friend-i-got-in-an-argument-with-someone">The legitimacy of fanfic</a></p><p><br/>----------------------</p><p>
  <em>
    <strong><br/>“Why are you wasting your time with fan fiction instead of writing real literature?”</strong>
  </em>
</p><p></p><div class="content">
  <p>I know I’m not the only fic author who has faced this question. The answer is as long as it is ranty, but it needs to be given.</p>
  <p>Greek mythology inspired James Joyce. George RR Martin inspired David Benioff. Conan Doyle inspired Mofftiss. Mozart’s life inspired Shaffer. They get lauded, fic writers get ridiculed. <em>What gives?</em></p>
  <p>I will readily accept that some writers have turned to fan fiction to have some fun, or to practice certain things without the pressure of creating an entire literary universe, but what I can’t stand behind is the notion that the aspiration of all fic writers should be to have something original published.</p>
  <p>Is writing fan fiction easy? Technically, yes - thanks to AO3 and ff.net, anyone can easily do so. Is it easy to create <em>good</em> fan fiction? No. It’s not any easier than creating any sort of quality fiction. With an original text, you are the ultimate expert - no one has the authority to tell you you’ve done things wrong when it comes to characterisation or world-building apart from technical aspects. With fan fiction, you have a potential audience of millions of people who will certainly tell you if you go totally off the rails and don’t call your own text out on it. Characters acting in ways they usually wouldn’t is the salt of fic - it’s what many good plots and conflicts are built upon, but the text needs to show awareness of that. You need to know your canon. You need to know the rules so that you can break them. You need to know the fandom’s tropes in order to make parody out of them. You need to know what is going on in the fic nook of your fandom, if you want to do something fresh and novel. So much fic is published in many fandoms that the nose really needs to be put on the grindstone if one is to complete with the cream of the crop.</p>
  <p>Is the world of real, published fiction a <em>nicer</em> place to be than the world of fan fiction? After following the career of a dear friend who is a novelist, my impression is<em> hell no</em>. Is getting published a measure of skill? Yes, to some extent, since there’s a referee process in the form of editors and publishers, but  having seen what it’s like out there I have no desire to enter that world of misogyny, commercialism, emphasis on dumbing down things based on  common denominators, fighting over attention with more established authors, getting very little feedback because readers are intimidated to give it to a “real author”, and luck largely regulating whose name actually gets out there.</p>
  <p>What most irks me about assuming that fan fiction is a stepping stone towards <em>real</em> literature is the fact that inbuilt into that notion I see the idea that creativity is somehow about <em>proving things</em>.</p>
  <p>Creativity should be about inspiration and fun and sharing and learning. Writing fan fiction gives me all that and so much more. I don’t do it to prove that I can write. I do it because I enjoy doing so. As simple as that.</p>
  <p>I have seen novel-length fics that easily rival any piece of published fiction in terms of world-building, characterisation and all-around quality. I have created prominent OCs, merged my chosen fandom with many wondrous things and genres and created original, altered worlds and settings for my fics. I even have an original main character in a story whose parts are written in first person. I did not do these things because I wanted to prove that I could. I did them because I was inspired to do so.</p>
  <p>For original fiction writers, getting published is an important way in which to find readers. That might be changing, though, with the advent of Wattpad and other similar services. With fan fiction, convenient forums enabling us to find readers have existed for a long time. In a way, fic is already a veteran in what original fiction is still a floundering rookie. The reasons for fan fiction still being ridiculed has lots of historical reasons, and getting into them would entail a lengthy essay on the history of literature, feminism and media studies. Yes, it’s derivative, but so is all pop and rock music, and we’re not throwing all that in the bin, either, just because someone had to invent its tools first.</p>
  <p>How about we stop measuring the worth of creativity, and instead focus on enjoying its fruits together. Because that’s what it’s all about.  </p>
</div><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0015"><h2>15. On research for fic</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>On August 15th, 2015, I was researching the valkyries, duck species that live in Patagonia and violin sonatas written by Bach. Yes, it was all relevant and yes, it all had something to do with sex.</p><p><br/>---------------------</p><p>A quote from Nikki Giovanni: <em>"I want to be clear about this. If you wrote from experience, you’d get maybe one book, maybe three poems. Writers write from empathy."</em></p><p>
  
</p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0016"><h2>16. On self-criticism</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>A quote from Franz Kafka: <em>"Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly."</em></p><p>------------------------</p><p>@cannibalcoalition has said it well: <em>"Reminder to self: your writing seems boring and predictable because 1. you wrote it, 2. you’ve read it like eight million times. A person who has never read it before does not have this problem."</em></p><p>And we should also listen to Cheryl Strayed: <em>"You have to surrender to your mediocrity, and just write. Because it’s hard, really hard, to write even a crappy book. But it’s better to write a book that kind of sucks rather than no book at all, as you wait around to magically become Faulkner. No one is going to write your book for you and you can’t write anybody’s book but your own."</em></p><p> </p><p>-------------------------</p><p>From @doxian:</p><p>
  <em><span class="label">"ME:</span> *looking at friend's OC* Woooah! WHat? Such a beautiful creature. Look at those emotions! THAT BACKSTORY! What an angel. What a babe. I love them as my own child and I want only the best for them.</em>
</p><p>
  <em><span class="label">ME:</span> *looking at my OCs* his name is fuckface mcloserbutt and he is a sad man who i torment he lives in the trash"</em>
</p><p>(from <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/131021305715/me-looking-at-friends-oc-woooah-what-such-a#notes">this post</a>)</p><p><br/>------------------------</p><p></p><div class="line">
  <p>
    <br/>
    <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/131609804270">You are an artist</a>
  </p>
  <p>
    <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/159978361970/ellipsicalelle-some-people-arent-going-to-like">Nobody else can tell your stories</a>
  </p>
  <p>
    <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/176238748750/be-fucking-nuts">Art is for going fucking nuts</a>
  </p>
  <p>
    <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/166870834875/snamioneshipper-lovefromdean-sometimes-i">It's okay to love your own stories</a>
  </p>
  <p>
    <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/186441838400/im-currently-writing-a-fic-on-wattpad-and-its-a">How to get over feeling intimidated to post one's first story to AO3</a>
  </p>
  <p>
    <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/166068457545/hatandsandalsguy-gaelfox-guarded-belief">The only way to learn is to write more</a>
  </p>
  <p>
    <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/190212444395/sorrens-ao3commentoftheday-hi-theres">This isn't a competition</a>
  </p>
  <p>
    <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/611734840951308288/things-i-do-when-i-feel-like-crap-about-my-writing">Things to do when feeling crappy about one's writing</a>
  </p>
  <p>
    <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/162991674645/flaminganakin-fialleril-flaminganakin-when">On writing That Pivotal Scene</a>
  </p>
  <p>------------------------</p>
  <p>A quote from @sheherzog: <em>"I wish I had the confidence of a bad male writer"</em></p>
  <p>
    <em><br/>------------------------</em>
  </p>
  <p>
    <b>Anonymous asked @aocommentoftheday: How do you get over the embarrassment of writing fan-fiction? I’m new to it and I’m currently writing a reader insert (which seems infinitely more embarrassing) and I continuously go through a back and forth of enjoying it to being self-conscious and embarrassed. Have you gone through anything similar? Thanks.</b>
  </p>
  <p>
    <b>J. Baillier's answer:</b>
  </p>
  <p><b>It is a combination of historical misogyny, literary snobbery, and plain lack of education in the topic that makes people think fanfic is somehow inferior to other genres of fiction.</b> Lots of folks assume that since we are using characters created by someone else, writing fanfic is somehow easier than creating original fiction?</p>
  <p>No. <b>My argument is that it’s in many ways <em>harder </em>to write fic</b>. Why? You have a pre-built reader base that is passionate about this world and these characters, and will not hesitate to call you out on mistakes. You need a lot of knowledge in said areas to do stuff well, and you’ll still have to have the skills that an original author possesses to create plots, execute themes and yes, create original characters. <a class="tumblelog" href="https://tmblr.co/miQ8aQqB_Jr9XOcTZzfh32Q">@khorazir</a> spent years researching real history to write <em>Enigma</em>. Bittergreens learned the theory of art of sailing in the golden era of sea travel for <em>Over Fathoms Deep. </em>I dare claim that few professional novel writers work as hard as lots of fanfic authors do when building the worlds of their stories.</p>
  <p>A lot of published fiction is shoddy, illogical, childish, clicheed and of low quality. I see, on a regular basis, fanfic that is better written than most of what one can find in bookstores. And, fanfic doesn’t require you to adhere to the rules of professional publishing which are, unfortunately, governed by what sells and what the goldfish masses want. In fic, you can experiment with genres, styles, story length, narrative — you can break all the rules you want. </p>
  <p>I write fic because fic is what I want to write, not because I am preparing to write “a real book” or because I don’t have the skills to write original fiction. Every damned story of mine <em>is</em> original in that no one else could have told that story the way that I did. </p>
  <p>Anthony Horowitz’s novel <em>Moriarty </em>has been a New York Times bestseller. Neil Gaiman won a Hugo with what is essentially a Holmes&amp;Lovecraft fusion fic (and he has even described it as fan fiction himself). James Joyce’s <em>Odysseus </em>is a retelling of a myth — a new interpretation of a story and its characters which he had enjoyed enough that it inspired him to write. Also known as <em>fan fiction</em>. There’s Jane Austen retellings with zombies, comics based on books and even this BBC TV series which takes prior interpretations of a series of stories about a detective named Sherlock Holmes and reimagines them in modern London because the two screenwriters love that world and those characters so much.</p>
  <p>We’re not doing anything that these so-called professional writers aren’t doing all the time, and they get praised for these “clever pastiches” and “reimaginings” while fic writers are still seen as some sort of a troll race of lesser intelligence. It makes me bloody furious. Fiction genres favoured by women, sexual minorities and other marginalised groups have always been stomped down by those in power because they promote such dangerous, progressive ideas as equality, healthy and/or kinky portrayals of diverse sexuality, and females and sexual minorities enjoying those things. I sincerely hope that in my lifetime there will be a day when I can step forward and say that I write explicit Sherlock fanfic and not feel like I’ve just stepped to the podium at an AA meeting. I know some of that’s just in my head, but there are many countries in which a healthcare professional publicly engaging in such depravity would became the source of scrutiny from those monitoring the ethics of their conduct. That is sad. </p>
  <p>Of course I’m (partly) exaggerating (a little bit). I keep my literary endeavours pretty secret, but when I do tell non-fandom people about them, the reception tends to be exactly what the person who asked this question illustrated: curiosity, awe and positive encouragement. My mother who does not know johnlock exists but who knows the extent of my ficcy hobbies keeps proudly telling her friends about them.</p>
  <p>Maybe that day will come, after all. But I still reserve the right to be a pessimist about it. Still, there’s a lot we can do. Let’s talk about fic to people (just… please don’t start with the omegaverse; all that sort of stuff should come once you’re <em>reeled them in</em>, not earlier!). Let’s not have those conversations apologetically and cowering in shame but proudly. We’re telling stories, and that’s always been an important thing for human connection, the preservation of human culture, and the betterment of it. We are fucking warriors, and don’t let some idiot who’s never done anything creative in their bloody lives make you think differently. (from <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/184662098710/how-do-you-get-over-the-embarrassment-of-writing">this Tumblr conversation</a>)</p>
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  </div></div>
<a name="section0017"><h2>17. Encouragement and advice for writers whose readership is still in low numbers</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>@tea-and-liminality said it well:<em> "This is for all the unsung fic writers; the ones who don’t make the must-read lists, the ones who don’t get recced, the ones who don’t get hundreds of kudos, the rarepair writers out on the peripheries of fandom, the ones who toil away quietly for the handful of people who read and love them. You matter - you’re a writer too, and don’t you ever forget it."</em></p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/163917506660/sincerely-chaos-7-percent-sincerely-chaos">On imposter syndrome and comparing oneself to big name authors in one's fandom</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/169314448230/that-post-going-around-of-the-person-who-deleted">On the point of writing new stuff in a fandom where there are already lots of stories and authors</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/184708480400/how-to-know-if-my-story-sucks-it-has-about-100">How do I know if my story sucks? It only has X comments and Y kudos.</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/619199765954117632/if-youre-a-creator-and-you-needed-to-hear-this">It's highly likely you have more readers than you think</a>
</p><hr/><p><b>Anonymous asked: </b> <strong>How do you like get somewhere in sherlock fic? How do you find a bigger number of readers? Obviously you have to write good stories and lots of them, but… There are so many sherlock writers, do you think there is any chance for a new writer to break in anymore?</strong></p><p>Crikey. I’m not sure if I’ll have a good answer for you; all I can advise is what I have done, and I don’t really have any evidence to back-up my claims that these are the likeliest methods for finding a readership. It’s a bit like… in the operating room, when you’re trying to fix a problem and press a million buttons and administer many different drugs to do that. When things do improve you have no way of knowing which one of those things actually worked. Plus there are much bigger names in this fandom who could probably give you really good tips. But I’ll try. </p><p>First of all, yes, absolutely there is always room for new authors. Whatever your theme, style and plot, I promise you that there is going to be an audience for it in the Sherlock fandom. How big that audience is, however, is a different matter, but surely quality can trump quantity, and very few authors are perhaps lucky enough to receive both. And you don’t always have to toil away for years to find readers; sometimes it just takes one massive hit fic, or being in the right place at a right time (usually that means writing fic in the early days of a fandom when competition is much less fierce). I have to say that’s not the norm, though. I’ve been writing fic for over twenty years now, and it took me years plus changing my pen name to find a sizeable readership in the Sherlock fandom.</p><p>There are types of stories that are more popular than others, but it also means there’s more competition in those genres. I believe that calculatedly tailoring story content to maximise popularity is not the way to go; if an author’s heart isn’t in what they’re doing, I believe it can show in the text. If what you want to write isn’t as popular as explicit-rated johnlock, so be it. I promise you that there are lots of people who have been waiting for someone to write precisely the kind of story you are planning and will share your love for it.</p><p><b>1. Fix the basics</b>. Proofread your work. Find a beta to help you work out plot problems and other structural issues. Know your canon. Use British English in Sherlock fic unless you have a specific reason to use American English. Don’t publish rough drafts; polish your stuff because first impressions only happen once. Give some thought to your summary and title; they are your selling points, your means to ensure a reader won’t just scroll past and read some other story among the hundreds that are published every day. </p><p><b>2. Be consistent, reliable and open about your publication schedules.</b> It’s perfectly fine to take even <em>years</em> between chapters, as long as you tell your readers about your schedule plans. A WIP that’s not been updated or furnished with an author’s note mentioning if it’s still being worked on is a very good way to alienate lots of readers. It’s okay to put works on hiatus; just label them as such. If you announce that you’re going to update once a week, make sure you can do that. This isn’t a job, and you don’t really owe your readers anything, but it is kind of logical that empty promises put them off, isn’t it? Everyone understands that real life can put a huge damper on creativity if they are told that’s what’s happening; radio silence can be interpreted in lots of more negative ways. I get quite a lot of comments saying that a reader normally never reads WIPs until they’re finished, but that they’ll make an exception with my stuff because they know they are guaranteed that the schedule I announce will be kept and that no story will ever be left unfinished.</p><p><b>3. Interact with your readers and other fellow fans.</b> Reply to AO3 comments, contact dedicated commenters to thank them for their time. Reblog fic-related Tumblr content and add your five cents. Create your own fic-related Tumblr content. Rec, comment on and discuss other authors’ work (but don’t <em>ever</em> hijack someone else’s AO3 comments section to promote your own stuff). I have found chapter announcements on Tumblr (especially if there are graphics involved) to be a very good (and hopefully non-obnoxious) way to promote my work. If someone is looking for a specific sort of fic, it’s perfectly acceptable to politely point out that you’ve written such a story.</p><p><b>4. Don’t be afraid to write more outlandish stuff.</b> Go your own way. Don’t do what every else is doing. Some of the classics in this fandom sound pretty exotic in concept until you read them and fall in love with them. That’s the beauty of fic: there are no rules. Maybe that AU nobody has ever done before is the fic that really puts you on the map. That being said, sometimes it takes a bit of a confidence boost before an author can pluck up the courage to go for the path less trodden. For me it was the success of the tightly canon-tied <em>Lunar Landscapes</em> which helped me believe I had built a sturdy enough reader base that I could write <em>A Diseased Fancy</em> and not send them running for the hills. Variety can be good but so can consistency in style and themes. It’s all up to you.</p><p><b>5. Strive to develop your writing</b>. Learn more grammar. Get rid of those pesky filler words. Read stuff that gives you a bigger vocabulary. Do research before depicting a subject matter you don’t yet know much about. Find real places and real world events to use in your stories, and learn about them so that you can use the details to enrich the text. Find a beta who provides not just cheerleading but also tough love when something doesn’t work. Learn not to take criticism personally — instead, look at it as a tool to develop your trade. Learn about plot structure models and read other writing advice from books, from online sources. Join a writers’ group. Ask questions. Be curious. The concept of your next fic might be waiting for you in tonight’s nature documentary on the telly or in that local concert, or in the next chapter of a novel you’re reading.</p><p>We've all been there. I was lucky to get 2 comments on a chapter when I still used my old pen name for Sherlock fanfic. Thankfully, there's a lot you can do to find readers.</p><hr/><p>
  <strong>Honeybeemotorcycles asked: Hi J, I want to ask you this; How can I be successful in writing Sherlock fic, Thank you so very much.</strong>
</p><p>Depends on what you mean by success. In the world of fic, is that finding a nice, receptive, insightful, understanding audience? That audience doesn’t need to be thousandfold. Or, are you chasing the numbers — lots of hits, plenty of kudos, piles of comments? Or is success being simply well-known within the fandom for whatever reason?</p><p>Just like there are one-hit-wonder artists, there are fic authors whose fame within a fandom may be based on even just one stellar story. Then there are those who have written dozens and dozens of consistently high-quality and popular stories and enjoy a certain position of familiarity in the minds of their fellow fans because of that.</p><p>Or… could success be that you’re please with your stories, that you’ve achieved your writing goals with them and feel like you have developed your writing skills along the way? Equating AO3 statistics with story quality is the wrong way to go. Every skilled author has to start somewhere.</p><p>In fact, success can be all of those things that I mentioned above. </p><p>For the sake of argument I’ll assume that by success, you mean becoming a popular author who gets a nice amount of comments and other reader interaction, and whose name is familiar to many fandom members. How does one achieve that status?</p><p><b>The short answer would be hell if I know (LOL). The long answer would be that I think there are many ways to climb that mountain.</b> It can happen fast or it can happen slow. You might have to chip away at it for years, or perhaps a big-name fan suddenly discovers your work, loves it and promotes it. It’s a combination of hard work and luck. There are also types of fic which are more popular than others.</p><h2>Let’s have a look at some of the features I have noticed in the fic lives and careers of popular Sherlock authors. Not all big-name ones feature all of these, but there may be some commonalities.</h2><p><b>Acquire good language skills</b>. Thank god the occasional typo, grammar error and oddity can be ignored by most readers, but frequent mistakes will put off a lot of people. Get a beta — a native speaker one. Listen to them. Use Grammarly or some other tool. Work on building your vocabulary. Know your canon right down to the smallest detail. Getting major canon details wrong can easily make you look like a recent arrival (nothing wrong with that, of course, but we’re aiming for the stars here so let’s be ambitious. <a class="tumblelog" href="https://tmblr.co/mXuqkgtQvJI8jGdZg0o-wCw">@sussexbound</a> is an example of an author who weaves beautiful language.</p><p><b>Find a fresh angle and a distinct style. </b>What separates your Sherlock stories from those of other authors? Identify that, and cultivate it. We’ve seen particularly inventive, sexy and well-characterised AUs launch their first-timer authors into instant stardom. Be original. <a class="tumblelog" href="https://tmblr.co/mEuT635hPEQvaXCERCLVk6w">@engazed</a> is a splendid example, and we have many AU wizards whose imaginations know no bounds such as <a class="tumblelog" href="https://tmblr.co/miQ8aQqB_Jr9XOcTZzfh32Q">@khorazir</a>. </p><p><b>Present with consistency in quality.</b> <a class="tumblelog" href="https://tmblr.co/mxwMnGzyBP6n-Jqm6mWIU0Q">@silentauroriamthereal</a> is the perfect example. In terms of the quality of writing, picking up a SilentAuror fic is like picking up a bottle of champagne instead of some cheap bubbly — the brand is a guarantee of excellence.</p><p><b>Do your research or use your special knowledge or profession. </b><a class="tumblelog" href="https://tmblr.co/miQ8aQqB_Jr9XOcTZzfh32Q">@khorazir</a> and <a class="tumblelog" href="https://tmblr.co/mk23yuO3MYkOMS5aBY21dsQ">@7-percent</a> are examples of authors whose fics contain an immense amount of factual worldbuilding. BakerTumblings and I use our healthcare/medical backgrounds in our stories.</p><p><b>Aim for complex, novel-length fiction — or specialise and excel in short form. </b>Lots of readers love short stories, but the really popular authors tend to also do multiple chapter stories. They don’t need to be posted one chapter at a time — for instance, SilentAuror publishes entire stories on one go — but they can be, and that way of doing it can help inspire readers to comment more and to stick with a story after getting suspended in the excitement of a good cliffhanger. Look at MariborPetrichor’s <em>Radioactive Trees In A Red Forest </em>as an example of a work which will leave everyone impressed.</p><p><b>Deliver what you promise. </b>Don’t publish WIPs which get abandoned. Yes, it can happen to even experienced, skilled authors, but there is a simple fix to this: do not published a story until you’ve written enough of it that you can be certain it will get finished. Having to wait years for chapter 21/? can put off a lot of readers, and there are many in your potential audience who don’t even read WIPs.</p><p><b>Never publish a rough draft. </b>Once again, find a beta. Fix what they suggest. Edit your stories. Fine-tune them. Let them simmer. Never push out anything that’s not polished. It seems to be a very common beginner mistake to push out chapter 1/? instantly once it’s drafted, get a few comments, then realise they have no clue what to do with the story next, and it gets abandoned. Look how meticulously polished the stories of <a class="tumblelog" href="https://tmblr.co/mfYq9eYTbY7vXYMMIYqWtRQ">@the-pen-pot</a> are, for instance.</p><p><b>I would always advise anyone to write what they <em>want</em> to write, not what they think is popular. </b>I like to believe that being calculating by writing something just to please an audience rather than pouring one’s real passions into the text would show in the look and feel of the story. That being said, there are ships which are more popular than others, and in the Sherlock fandom in particular, stories containing (well-written!) explicit sex are warmly embraced. A gen casefic will, sadly, tend to get less readers regardless of the writing quality than a steamy johnlock romance will.</p><p><b>Success can’t be produced alone. You need your fellow fans for it. </b>I think you’ve had a good start in interacting with them, which is something I always recommend if someone wants advice on how to find a readership. Tell people about your stories, but don’t be obnoxious about it (my pet peeve are new authors who show up in other people’s AO3 comment sections just to promote their own work). Be interested in their stories and help spread the word about them. Comment on fics. Rec fics on Tumblr and Twitter. Make friends. This is a community above all.</p><h2>Finally, the most important piece of advice:</h2><h2>
<b>Write. Write some more. Write a lot. Write many stories. Publish them.</b> </h2><p>This is the one step you can’t avoid if you want to be a successful fic writer: <em>you gotta do the writing</em>.</p><p>Rare is the author who rises to fandom stardom overnight with just one or two stories (SinceWhenDoYouCallMe_John with <em>Gimme Shelter</em> is a rare example). Only writing can teach you to write better, and the more you publish, the more likely people are to discover your stories. A readership is born and grows slowly, but once a certain critical mass is achieved, its growth will start spurring itself on. Except on rare occasions, the only way to get there is one step at a time. </p>
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<a name="section0018"><h2>18. Anecdotes from the fic life</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>I love these quick emergency fic writing notes I keep making on my phone because I can never understand a word of them afterwards… </strong>
</p>
<p>Examples: <br/><em>“mycroft too”</em><br/><em>“elaborate frug” </em><br/><em>“i realize this is the foreplay”</em><br/><em>“would kill have killed”</em></p>
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<a name="section0019"><h2>19. On editing a story</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>Anonymous asked: How much do you edit your drafts before publishing?</strong>
</p><p>Good question. The short answer would be lots. The <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/616535253373386752/how-much-do-you-edit-your-drafts-before">post I answered this ask in</a> contains some useful graphics which you might want to look at while reading this.</p><p>When writing alone, I create a draft fairly quickly without worrying too much about typos and plotholes and whatnot. Next, I go through it once to polish it a bit so that my beta won’t get a headache. Once they’ve gone through the chapter/story and given suggestions and fixed mistakes, I then work on the draft a few rounds more to make sure it fulfils the goals I have set, answers all pertinent questions and furthers the character arcs. Occasionally I might ask for another beta glance-through if I have added a lot. Then, I use Grammarly to find more elusive mistakes, after which I publish. After the chapter appears on AO3 I usualy give it one more read-through to fix what I may have missed.</p><p>When co-authoring a story, one person usually drafts a scene, after which the other adds their contributions. Then, before publication, we both give it at least one more round of polishing plus I tend to Grammarly those chapters, too.</p><p>For me, editing is the fun part. The stress of worrying about whether a story will happen is gone at that point, and I get to turn the chunk of marble I have roughly chiselled out of a cliff into its final form.</p><p><br/>-----------------------</p><p>Delia Sherman has said it well: <em>"I have a thought about ‘kill your darlings.’ There seems to be a general notion out there in the ether that the phrase means, ‘Hunt down every sentence or image you really love and cut it down like a pernicious weed.’ That, my dears, is bullshit. In my opinion, what it really means is, ‘If you’re rewriting a whole scene just so that a paragraph or conversation you’re in love with will work, and it still kind of doesn’t, maybe it doesn’t really belong in this story and you should print it out and put it in a lovely, decorative folder labelled DARLINGS to read on those days when you hate every sentence you’re writing.'"</em></p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/173762502185/himluv-ladydragon1316-this-needs-to-be-framed">Advice from Neil Gaiman on editing</a>
</p><p> </p><p>-----------------------</p><p>
  <b>Anonymous asked: How much do you edit your fics before putting them on AO3?</b>
</p><p>Here's <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/620898944752517120/heres-an-example-of-how-many-changes-iwe-often">an example</a>.</p><p></p><blockquote>
  <p>Here are the rough parametres of THE PROCESS OF J. BAILLIER FIC</p>
  <p>1. get idea. have no clue where it came from.<br/>2. rave about idea at betas and everyone who happens to be within the blast zone<br/>3. decide to let idea simmer for at least a month<br/>4. lost patience start writing the whole thing the very next day<br/>5. write like a madman until 80k of fic has been poured out of brain in about 3 days, leading to being exhausted and a bit cross-eyed and very, very emotionally tunnel-visioned (fics under 100k I usually churn out during a crunch of a few days; when co-authoring or writing much longer stories I tend to do about 10k of drafting a day)<br/>6. rave about draft at betas until they agree to read it<br/>7. go through suggested changes (= editing round 1)<br/>8. decide on a publishing timetable; let the whole thing simmer and keep adding things that occur while driving the car and being utterly unable to type except for when having pulled over at bus stops (at this stage my drive home from work takes about 4 times as long as it normally does but this is the best part because there is a draft which means that the story is going to happen but I can still tweak as much as I want until it’s good enough) (=editing round 2)<br/>9. show the chapters where lots have been added to betas again (=editing round 3)<br/>10. go through the thing once more to week out typos even though I can never get them all out (editing round 4)<br/>11. if there’s a long time gap between editing round 4 and the actual publication of the story, I do one MORE editing round just before I shove it into the glittery wonderful black hole that is AO3 (=editing round 5)<br/>12. publish fic. fix the typos that will still invariably be there. plug a plothole or two when readers point them out and usually they are so obvious that I do a lot of faceplanting on cafe tables.</p>
</blockquote><p> </p><p>I forgot one important and shitty phase which hapens AFTER all this if I have not reached step 1 with a new fic: THE HANGOVER. THE VOID OF DESPAIR. THE what-do-i-do-with-my-life-now. The fear that I have just written my last story and have somehow magically lost all my writing abilities. The attempt to have a normal person’s existence and failing at it like pants. The only medicine for this phase is step 1 of a new fic.</p><p><br/>-----------------------</p><p> </p><p> </p><p></p><div class="title">
  <p>
    <strong>Self-checklist for authors before posting a new chapter</strong>
  </p>
</div><div class="content">
  <p>1. Does the chapter have a title I am happy with?</p>
  <p>2. Is it the length I want it to be, especially compared to the other chapters?</p>
  <p>3. How do I want the plot to advance in this chapter, and is it happening?</p>
  <p>4. What character arc developments do I want in this chapter, and are they happening?</p>
  <p>5. Are the POV and the tenses consistent?</p>
  <p>6. Is there any triggering stuff not yet reflected by the tags?</p>
  <p>7. Has a general grammar &amp; typo sweep been done by someone else than me? (a beta, Grammarly…)</p>
  <p>8. Have I emphasised what I feel are the key themes and moments in this chapter?</p>
  <p>9. Have I checked all the canon-related facts such as how to spell things? (for instance, it’s St Bartholomew’s or Barts, not “St Barts”)</p>
  <p>10. Have I removed all sentences and scenes which are just filling without function (such as a short scene the only purpose of which is to transport characters from spot A to spot B)?</p>
</div>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0020"><h2>20. The art of a good title and summary and the jungle of tagging</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>@fwips has once amusingly meditated on the topic of being too poetic in summaries: <em>"my pet peeve are fic summaries with something deep and obscure that not only tell me nothing about the story but dont MEAN anything theyre just words like ‘When lost eyes lock onto a summer’s shadow, will love make it in the end?? [content warnings]: anal fisting'" </em>(from <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/129581031420/fwips-my-pet-peeve-are-fic-summaries-with">this post</a>)</p><p><br/>-----------------------</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/190100832605/on-the-subject-of-wall-of-tags-any-suggestions">How to avoid ending up with a wall of tags aka how to pick which things to tag</a>
</p><p>
  <strong><br/>---------------------</strong>
</p><p>
  <strong>honeybeemotorcycles asked: How do you title your fic?</strong>
</p><p>Many of my titles are quotes from song lyrics. </p><p>These include:<br/><em>– From Here No Lines Are Drawn </em>(Tori Amos: I Can’t See New York)<br/><em>– Swept Under The Rug </em>(from the album Under Rug Swept by Alanis Morissette)<br/>– <em>Uncharted Territory</em> (Alanis Morissette: Uninvited)<br/>– <em>You Have Drawn Red From My Hands</em> (Tanita Tikaram: Twist In My Sobriety)<br/>– <em>Inherently Given </em>(Sarah McLachlan: Wait)<br/>– <em>The Monument of Memory </em>(Florence + The Machine: Various Storms And Saints)<br/>– <em>Where The Streets Have No Name</em> (U2 song)</p><p>
  <b>The titles in the <em>You Go To My Head</em> series are mostly medical terms.</b>
</p><p>The series title <em>At The Edge of Our Hope </em>and the name of the first story, <em>Drift Compatible </em>are quotes from Pacific Rim.</p><p>I found the title for <em>The Breaking Wheel</em> when reading about medieval torture devices. It seemed logical to use the name of another for the sequel <em>On the Rack </em>(I did initially oppose the title, though; kept telling 7Percent that no, it’s most definitely NOT going to be called that LOL).</p><p>
  <b>When I’m using works of literature as a basis/influence on a story, I like to use quotes from the original. </b>
</p><p>Examples:<br/>– <em>Wait Till Victor Comes</em> (book title Wait Till Helen Comes)<br/>– <em>A Diseased Fancy </em>(a quote from a short story by HP Lovecraft)</p><p><em>Still Remains The Most Beautiful Thing</em> is something Oscar Wilde has said about Oxford, and since that location was central to the story, the quote felt fitting.<br/><br/><b>I also use a lot of poetry quotes.</b></p><p><em>To Be Prayed For While The World Doth Endure </em>got its title from a poem from that era by a writer who was executed as a heretic which parallels Sherlock’s fate in the story.</p><p>For <em>To Break A Butterfly Upon A Wheel </em>I wanted an older poem quote to contrast with the modern setting. The title is from Alexander Pope’s “Epistle to Dr Arbuthnot” (1735).</p><p><em>Love Is A Smoke</em> is a Shakespeare quote. We used a lot of those in <em>2007</em> as well. <em>Our Doubts Are Traitors</em> is also from The Bard.</p><p><em>Swift, Fierce &amp; Obscene</em> is a quote from Percy Bysshe Shelley.</p><p><b>For Christmas stories, I favour quotes from old Christmas carols. </b><em>By A Thousand Cuts</em> employed those as chapter titles, and <em>The World In Solemn Stillness </em>lay is another example.</p><hr/><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/619265472550060032/babycharmander-babycharmander-a-little-psa">Some important pointers on tagging at AO3</a>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0021"><h2>21. When real world intrudes on writing</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>@canibecandid has said it well: <em>"I wish that there wasn’t this feeling of “Haha, I suck.” Among fan fiction writers. Don’t apologize for not being able to update regularly. Don’t apologize for what happens in your life. Enjoy taking your time with things. Update when you want. Consume other works when (and while) you’re stuck. You’re not a word generating machine. You’re a person, and I am grateful that you’ve chosen to share your stories with us."</em> (from <a href="I%20wish%20that%20there%20wasn%E2%80%99t%20this%20feeling%20of%20%E2%80%9CHaha,%20I%20suck.%E2%80%9D%20Among%20fan%20fiction%20writers.%20%20Don%E2%80%99t%20apologize%20for%20not%20being%20able%20to%20update%20regularly.%20%20Don%E2%80%99t%20apologize%20for%20what%20happens%20in%20your%20life.%20%20Enjoy%20taking%20your%20time%20with%20things.%20Update%20when%20you%20want.%20Consume%20other%20works%20when%20(and%20while)%20you%E2%80%99re%20stuck.%20%20You%E2%80%99re%20not%20a%20word%20generating%20machine.%20You%E2%80%99re%20a%20person,%20and%20I%20am%20grateful%20that%20you%E2%80%99ve%20chosen%20to%20share%20your%20stories%20with%20us.">this post</a>)</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/190249845710/i-have-started-my-first-job-a-while-ago-and-since">Writer guilt is a bitch</a>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0022"><h2>22. Love letters to the fandom</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>To all my readers — I love you people. I love your for reading, for reccing, for leaving kudos. If what I’ve written has managed to give other human beings the same sorts of feels that I have experienced when reading the works of the fantastic authors in this fandom, then that’s the best thing in the world.</strong>
</p><p>
  
</p><hr/><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/620390285788217344/bluebellofbakerstreet-mystradesexual-on">Rubert Graves on creativity in the Sherlock fandom</a>
</p><hr/><p></p><div class="title">
  <p> </p>
  <p>
    <strong>Dear reader of my stories –</strong>
  </p>
</div><p>I know you’re there. I can imagine you sitting on the bus, trying to keep curious fellow passengers from peering at your screen. I can imagine you stretched on the sofa, laptop leaning against your knees, or stealing a moment to read a bit during lunch while your coworkers talk about something much more boring than our beloved Baker Street boys.</p><p>Maybe, sometimes you want to comment but don’t know how exactly to put into words the feels, the longing for more, the sense of anticipation and triumph and the twisting blade of piningey angst. It’s okay, because I don’t always know how to comment on the works of others, either. We experience things in our own way and sometimes the words on paper or on screen reach something in us that we haven’t been aware of before. It’s a very personal experience, and communicating about it can be hard. Whether you do so or you don’t, you have your reasons for that, and every one of those reasons is valid and your prerogative.</p><p>I have read countless of fics that have given me so many wonderful feels, and if one of my stories has made someone have even a tenth of them, then I will have surpassed all my fic goals. Even knowing that such a thing happening is a possibility because my stories are out there for everyone to read is sort of enough for me. Whether you hit the kudos button or not, whether you comment or not, whether you send me an email or PM, reblog my silly things…. it doesn’t matter. I know you’re reading my stuff because we love the same things, and maybe sometimes you really agree with the words I have published online for you to read. </p><p>I know you’re there. Rock on.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0023"><h2>23. Would Arthur Conan Doyle have approved of fanfic?</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Yes, in fact he did so explicitly. When asked for permission to use Holmes in stories, he said: <em>"You may marry him, murder him, or do anything you like to him."</em></p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0024"><h2>24. On triggers and squicks and content warnings</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/128614571955/ivyblossom-jmathieson-fic">The difference between a squick and a trigger</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/186400521325/me-being-traumatized-and-not-wanting-that-to">Whose responsibility is it if a reader picks up a thoroughly tagged story and gets triggered by it?</a>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0025"><h2>25. On pen names and other aliases</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I adore people’s pen names on AO3. I love how I could rename myself Happypartycarrot and start writing the worst soul-crushing angst about death ever.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0026"><h2>26. On depicting science in general</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Robert M. Sapolsky has said it well: <em>"I love science, and it pains me to think that so many are terrified of the subject or feel that choosing science means you cannot also choose compassion, or the arts, or be awed by nature. Science is not meant to cure us of mystery, but to reinvent and reinvigorate it."</em></p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0027"><h2>27. On artistic licence and author autonomy</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/137173818840/reminder-to-my-fellow-sherlockians">All your Sherlocks are legit</a>
</p>
<p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0028"><h2>28. On writing about sex and sexuality</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/137011614155/writing-smut-like">How to choose the right sort of vocabulary</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/159557317050/while-many-people-think-fanfiction-is-about">Why sex belongs in fic</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/165907277470/many-people-encountering-fanfiction-for-the-first">Why is there so much erotic content in fic?</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/175570586560/nightfalltwen-sinriel-prokopetz-a-tip-for">Don't use the word 'sizeable'</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/175175330860/im-trying-to-prove-a-point-to-my-brain-reblog-if">Does fic need sex to be good?</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/179663749675/faq-what-are-the-stereotypes-of-asexual-and">Stereotypes of ace and aromantic characters</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/616539711297765376/im-ace-but-i-really-want-to-start-writing-smut">On being an ace who writes smut</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/190144835260/how-to-write-a-kiss">How to write a kiss</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/179320790640/elldotsee-probsactuallyavillain">Free the erection!</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/178534130915/shiplocks-of-love-morgendaemmerung89">The cringe of penning porns</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/173639786330/published-erotica-terribly-written-costs">The differences between published fiction and fanfic</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/166616370420/justgot1-kandy-shoppe-thebeetlequeen">Wonton vs wanton</a>
</p><p>A quote from Jessica Tripler: <em>"In porn, depictions of sex are meant to quickly and intensely arouse the reader/viewer and that’s about it. The situation is very different in romance fiction. In romance novels, sex should do something literary. It might reveal something about the characters, move them to the next stop on their journey, or further the plot. Great sex can symbolize how wonderful the relationship could be if the characters overcame the barriers they face outside the bedroom. And unsatisfying, awkward or angry sex can highlight the character’s helplessness or isolation. Sex can help a protagonist understand herself, surprise herself, see himself as worthy or beautiful. In romance, sex is never just physical, even if the characters believe otherwise."</em></p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0029"><h2>29. On inspiration, writer's block and motivation problems</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/136186408400/fanfic-writing-process">The writing process in all its frustrating glory</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/150533042080/the-five-types-of-writers-block">The five types of writer's block</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/177766996655/hi-i-was-wondering-if-you-could-give-some-advice">Losing motivation for a WIP</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/620246112077578240/jobooksncoffee-elliewritesstories-writing-is">How to nurture inspiration</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/179375080920/shinondraws-i-was-listening-to-an-art-podcast">Writer's block or hibernation?</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/173134209420/rehab-for-writing-injuries">Rehab for writing injuries</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/620691204068212736/best-trick-i-ever-picked-up-seriously-i-have">How not to get stuck in a difficult bit</a>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p>
  <strong>On solving writing motivation problems</strong>
</p><p>As is with all advice on artistic pursuits, not all of this is applicable to all writers. These are just some personal pointers, most of which have occurred to me through trial and error. After twenty years of writing fanfic in three different fandoms I dare to claim I know a little something about overcoming motivation problems.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p></p><div class="content">
  <p><b>Accept that writing isn’t supposed to be fun all the time</b><br/>I wish it were fun even half of the time. It’s slow, stress-inducing, terrifying, distracting from real life, difficult and contains a risk of feeling like I failed in my own eyes. You’re going to have chapters you hate writing, plot problems that drive you crazy, characters who won’t behave. It’s all part of the game. Like ballet dancers willing to endure constricting diets, pain, injuries and physical exhaustion beyond reasonable and sane, we toil for those tiny moments of clarity, elation and the feeling that we control an entire microcosmos through which we can connect with our fellow human beings. Many of us don’t do it because we can, we do it because we feel we must - because nobody else can wrench that scene out of your head onto a piece of paper or a laptop screen but you.</p>
  <p>I have a friend who’s a professional author and she has taught me an important lesson: motivation isn’t everything. Sometimes you just need to put your nose to the grindstone and work. When it feels like wading through quicksand: write 100 words. If you don’t feel like throwing your laptop out of the window, write 100 more. If it feels bearable still, write another 100. Continue until you have met your writing goal for that day.</p>
  <p><b>Don’t judge a text while writing it</b><br/>Let it pour out without too much self-censorship. You can weed out the problems later. It’s easier to edit a text with too much stuff in it than it is to add new things. The first draft rarely is the final one - don’t let yourself get too stressed about how good or bad it is. Focus on getting that story out of your head so that others can enjoy it, too (once it’s been polished during the editing phase).</p>
  <p><b>Find a beta</b><br/>A good beta will point out your blind spots, tell you what works and what doesn’t, and encourage you when you need it. Sometimes all that’s required to stop a writer’s block is someone confirming that the story is, still, worth the effort. A very pertinent question from a beta has often lead me to really start thinking, and that may lead to a lovely spark of motivation to elaborate on an interesting bit in the story.</p>
  <p><b>Don’t mystify writer’s block</b><br/>It’s not the Black Plague. It’s not something that requires therapy or is largely treatment-resistant. There are many kinds of it - from a complete loss of interest in the story to a slight technical snag. Stop calling it a writer’s block and take it simply as a symptom of ‘writing is not always fun nor is it even supposed to be’.</p>
  <p><b>Make a time and a place for writing</b><br/>Put it in your calendar. Tell about it to other people you live with. Close the door. Give the dog a new chewtoy. Sit the kids in front of a good quality children’s film. Make writing at least a moderate priority. And when that big-time inspiration hits, make use of it - that laundry and that half-read novel you have on the table can wait a few days so that you can get that diamond of a text out of your head. A creative flow state is a rare thing - cherish it.</p>
  <p>As for where to write, it’s a matter of personal preference. Sometimes a change of scenery helps with motivation, too! Peace and quiet can actually be a hindrance - I’ve done some of my best work in cafes where the ambient sounds work a bit like white noise.</p>
  <p><b>Wait for an inspiring enough idea</b><br/>This might be the most subjective bit of advice on this list, but it’s what works for me. People who don’t write things often seem to assume that writing starts with the question 'what if’. What if Spock bought a caravan? What if Fox Mulder went on a farm holiday? Fun ideas, but for me they’re not enough for a story to be born out of. I need a scene, a vision, an irresistible flash of emotion in my head - just a tiny but very concrete glimpse. Instead of 'what if’ these things sort of playing out in my head, and I need to transcribe what’s going on. I can’t decide to simply start writing a story about a certain subject matter - I need that hook, line and sinker feeling. Some of those flashes of inspiration lead to stories, some of them remain forever in limbo on my hard drive but all in all, without them, no stories of mine would ever see the light of day.</p>
  <p>Wait for the idea that properly lights that spark. The rest will sort itself out.</p>
  <p><b>Communicate with your readers and fellow authors</b><br/>As much as I’ve banged on about that sparkling vision that starts it all, sometimes the motivation boost I’ve needed has come from readers. I was repeatedly asked if I could please possibly do a sequel to “Grey Matters”. As happy as I was that so many people loved that story so much they wanted more, it was sort of grueling, because I had no idea what a sequel could be about. Reader comments somehow managed to lodge that thought into my brain, because the cogs kept whirring and after a while there suddenly was a scene in my head that kickstarted the sequel.</p>
  <p>Talking to fellow authors can give you valuable advice on solving motivation problems, spotting personal blind spots in technique and most of all, keeping alive the love for the fandom itself. You’ll be exposed to new ideas and perhaps you’ll even end up betaing the works of others which can be very educational and inspiring.</p>
  <p>Talk to your readers. Write Author’s notes, reply to comments, ask questions. It’ll make you feel like a part of something bigger, remind you that there are people out there who love what you’re doing. It won’t fix a bad case of motivation gone fishing, but it’ll help you stiff up that lip when writing doesn’t feel like much fun.</p>
  <p><b>Don’t pay too much attention to idiots (as Sherlock would probably love to tell you)</b><br/>Don’t think about potential reader reactions too much - tell the story you need to tell. In a big fandom there’s always going to be someone who doesn’t like what you’ve done. Sometimes they even show up to tell you this, not grasping the concept of “don’t like, don’t read”. I am talking about those who have nothing useful to say, and whose negative opinions come from personal preferences instead of valid points about canon or characterization: “I just don’t like stories where there’s no case going on/John doesn’t wear red pants/Mycroft isn’t ridiculously poncy/Sherlock doesn’t play the violin/Mary isn’t completely evil.” Ignore them. I know it’s hard and discouraging to be told by someone that what you’ve done is unworthy in their eyes, but it’s your story, and literature is not a democracy.</p>
  <p>Same goes for letting or not letting feedback affect the content of unpublished chapters in the editing phase. Don’t let readers decide where you’re taking your story. Prompts and request ficlets are tons of fun, but for bigger pieces you are the one who ultimately decides what happens. I once wrote a story the ending of which I knew was going to divide readers. Despite protests I didn’t change it, and I’m proud of that. It was a ballsy move, and it was my move.</p>
  <p>I want to iterate that I’m not talking about actual constructive criticism here - that’s a form of love for your story. Take it as such. Praise is nice, but it’s the concrit that will teach you to be a better writer. There have been countless of occasions where reader comments have lead me to realize there’s a plothole to be fixed, or a subject matter to be elaborated on in a later chapter. Those who give you constructive criticism are helping you make your story even better and thus more enjoyable for all readers. It’s a win-win situation, really.</p>
  <p><b>Try not to get discouraged by the talents of others</b><br/>This is a tough one, especially for beginners. There’s always going to be someone better than you, someone cleverer, someone with what you feel has a more original voice. That doesn’t mean that you should pack up and leave. There are stories inside us that nobody else can tell than their inventors. Tolstoy couldn’t write my johnlock fics, nor could Maya Angelou pen your Sherlock stories. This fandom is such a big one that every story will surely find an audience, and they are willing to overlook small blunders you may have made, if the love you poured into those stories shines through.</p>
  <p>It’s also possible to get better at it and make that gap between your skills and those of others smaller, even non-existant. Find a beta, read a couple of writing guides (Jeff Vandermeer’s “Wonderbook” is very inspirational), take heart reader comments and other constructive criticism. Most of all: keep at it. Write, write, write. That’s how you learn. Two years ago, I could never have taken on the sorts of writing projects I am capable now. How’d I get there? By writing, of course.</p>
  <p>When you’re in the middle of a writing project, it may not be the best idea to read a lot of brilliant stuff during that period. I can’t write for days after a new chapter of one of my favourite WIPs comes out. They might affect my style without me realizing it, and they make me want to never write another word because they’re so good. Luckily that feeling of discouragement always passes with time.</p>
  <p><b>It doesn’t matter if it’s been done before</b><br/>….Because it hasn’t been done by you. I’ve lost count how many Reichenbach aftermath stories I’ve read, and it still doesn’t feel like a dead horse. Not by far. And there’s plenty of room on my rec list for more brilliant vampire stories. Many, many more.</p>
  <p><b>Read at least twice as much as you write. And watch stuff, too.</b><br/>I’m not just talking about reading Sherlock fic and watching the episodes. I’m talking about reading and watching all kinds of things. You might find inspiration in surprising places. One of the flashes of inspiration of mine that lead to a major story came to me after rewatching an episode of Dexter. Writing a horror novel that combines Sherlock with ACD canon and the works of H. P. Lovecraft couldn’t naturally have happened if I’d not read a lot of Lovecraft.</p>
  <p>Find out what’s happening in the fandom. Read prompts, setlock speculation, fan theories - such fandom meta is a wonderful source of out-of-the-box ideas.</p>
  <p><b>Resist the temptation of instant gratification</b><br/>Also known as “the curse of chapter 5/?”. Many authors start posting what will probably be a long story right after they’ve penned just a few chapters. The positive, enthusiastic readers comments feel wonderful, but they might actually lead a writer to sit on their laurels since they’ve already gained a satisfactory boost from the fandom. To counter this, at least plan a rough outline for the story - how many chapters, what are the pivotal points, how does it end? This will help with both the writing, and keeping the motivation up. Having a long story in the works with no end in sight can be daunting. An extreme form of trying to avoid this problem is the way I write: I never post even chapter 1 of a story I’ve not finished writing the entire draft for. Why? Because as a reader I’ve been burned so many times, falling in love with a series that gets abandoned at some point - “chapter 11/?, last updated 3 years ago…”.</p>
  <p><b>Never completely lose hope in a story</b><br/>I once had a ghost story with some jokes I really liked, but it never felt as though it was working. I let it simmer on my hard drive for a couple of years, and in the end the bits that I did like found a home in a completely different story. Another time I started writing a story, only to realize two chapters later that the reason it didn’t feel as though it had been working was that I hadn’t realized it was a sequel to one of my preceding stories. An unfinished short story of mine found a home as a chapter in a novel-lenght piece. Whatever you do, don’t delete those unfinished things! You never know where they might end up!</p>
  <p><b>Accept it when the Muse has moved on</b><br/>All lives end, all hearts are broken, and sometimes the love for a fandom has simply run its course. Grieve, accept and move on - don’t force yourself to write, if the spark just isn’t there anymore. You’ll know it when it happens - it feels different to just running out of ideas or hitting a particularly nasty plot problem.</p>
  <p><br/>--------------------</p>
  <p>
    <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/161050072075/urbanspaceman-franz-kafka-on-writing">Kafka had writer's block, too</a>
  </p>
  <p>
    <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/163097637250/duckbunny-here-is-some-writing-advice-drawn-from">How to get yourself to open that story file</a>
  </p>
</div>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0030"><h2>30. Fanfic writer appreciation</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/135200515460/shockblanketnightmares-geiszlerandgaila-i">How amazing it is that fanfic is free</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/149360962695/a-love-letter-to-fic-writers">A love letter to fic writers</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/146456677385/doctorcrocker-shout-out-to-fan-fiction-writers">A shout-out to fic writers</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/164870845620/an-ode-to-fanfiction-writers">An ode to fanfic writers</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/188334295015">Because you wrote</a>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0031"><h2>31. On depicting medicine in fic</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/10854126">A Crash Course in Anaesthesia and Intensive Care for (Sherlock) Fic Authors</a>
</p><p> </p><hr/><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/621290394467041280/injury-angst-for-writing-dummies">On depicting injuries and patient transport</a>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><hr/><p>
  <strong>honeybeemotorcycles asked: In America a doctor must go thru pre med of four years and med school of three years, then internship and residency. I was reading the you go to my head series and it seems as though in Europe, there is a bachelors in medicine? are you considered as doctor by then? or no. Why do they get a PHD afterwards?</strong>
</p><p> </p><p></p><div class="content">
  <p>The degree which is required for becoming a licensed physician varies wildly. In Norway and Denmark and Iceland, it’s called a “candidate of medicine”. Sweden awards a Master’s, Finland a technically much higher Licenciate’s, but all of these take about six years. Confusing, isn’t it! Graduate entry/being able to do some other kind of a basic degree and then applying directly to the clinical phase of medical studies isn’t possible in many places in the north of Europe. In Britain there is most often a graduate entry option, but often it’s not more than maybe one year shorter than the standard medical school program. In general, in Europe you don’t have to apply anywhere after you’ve done the preclinical stage of your medical studies, you just continue on to the clinical phase. In some places there isn’t even a very clear division between those two and a lot of clinical material is integrated into the very first years to keep things interesting.</p>
  <p>In some European countries such as Germany, when one graduates medical school, the title on receives is more “professional” such as the local language equivalent of the word “physician”. Bachelor doesn’t seem to be a very common title. I suppose one could quit medical school after a few years and in some countries, leave with a lower-tier degree, but it wouldn’t give one a licence to practice as a doctor. In general, med school in Europe is 4–7 years depending on how much clinical internship time is required and whether it’s mostly done during medical school or after it. In countries where a lot of it is inbuilt into your med school degree, you get a full licence quicker.</p>
  <p>Nobody gets awarded a PhD/D.Med.Sci. (<em>doctor of philosophy</em> or a <em>doctor of medical science</em> degree) just for graduating from medical school. To achieve that, you have to do research, write and publish scientific papers and usually also defend a larger thesis. This can often be done on the side of medical school but I suspect that most European doctors who go for it will do so after graduation. A doctorate is a form of <em>academic</em> further education while specialising in some field of medicine is a form of <em>professional</em> further education. In some countries the latter is compulsory while in others it’s not. It also depends on the country how much a PhD will benefit your career if you only want to do clinical (patient) work. In a university hospitals in the Nordic countries, it’s often sort of expected that you do at least some research and up to half of doctors in some countries end up doing a PhD. That takes between 2 and infinitesimal years depending on the size of your project, the other people involved, and your ability to make yourself do all that on top of your clinical duties, your personal life and maybe also being on call.</p>
  <p>So, to summarise and to give a personal example; I went through medical school, got my full licence, after which I enrolled in specialty training <em>and</em> a doctoral programme. Those eventually earned me a consultant status in anaesthesiology plus a doctorate. A <em>consultant</em>in Britain is the same as an <em>attending</em> in America. An <em>intern</em> in America seems to be kind of similar to British recent graduates doing their so-called <em>Foundation years. </em>The British equivalent of a <em>resident</em> would be <em>a specialist registrar. </em>A fellowship in both countries means doing subspecialty training in a field inside your chosen specialty such as gynaecological oncology inside obstetrics&amp;gynaecology. I’m about to finish a fellowship and I’ve got some other certificates of bits and bobs related to my medical career but won’t go into greater detail to prevent it all becoming too recognisable.</p>
  <p>Wikipedia has pretty good explanations of the <a href="https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FMedical_school&amp;t=ZjQ5NzA0M2Q3YmY3MDBhZDQ3NDk1ZTU4OTU3NjYzYjhkNzEyOWJkNSxGYWxSbmNTNw%3D%3D&amp;b=t%3A50pupsTzPFTfHkhd7AZBVg&amp;p=https%3A%2F%2Fjbaillier.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F616014870955147264%2Fin-america-a-doctor-must-go-thru-pre-med-of-four&amp;m=1">medical education systems in different countries</a>. And here’s <a href="https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.medschools.ac.uk%2Fmedia%2F2357%2Fmsc-entry-requirements-for-uk-medical-schools.pdf&amp;t=NjUzZGFhNjY4MmIxMjBjYWU4ZjczYTdjMzE4YWNmZjFlNWFhOTBlZSxGYWxSbmNTNw%3D%3D&amp;b=t%3A50pupsTzPFTfHkhd7AZBVg&amp;p=https%3A%2F%2Fjbaillier.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F616014870955147264%2Fin-america-a-doctor-must-go-thru-pre-med-of-four&amp;m=1">a concise explanation of the British system</a>.</p>
  <p>In the start of the <em>You Go To My Head</em> series Sherlock is an advanced neurosurgical registrar while John has been a fully fledged consultant in anaesthesiology for some time. In the course of the series, Sherlock reaches consultancy. Prior to meeting John, he’d also done a doctorate (PhD) in medical engineering on the side of his specialty training because he’s clever like that.</p>
</div><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0032"><h2>32. On depicting addiction in fic</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/160222220395/the-sherlock-drugs-faq">The Sherlock drugs FAQ</a>
</p>
<p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0033"><h2>33. The relationship between canon and fic</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>@lt-commander-aly said it well: <em>"I recognize that canon has made a decision. But given that it’s a stupid ass decision, I’ve elected to continue to ignore it. The solution being fan fiction, of course. Not only can you ignore, you can also FIX."</em></p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/161499196730/a-call-to-arms">A call to arms after season 4</a>
</p><p>A quote from Lev Grossman: <em>"I adore the way fan fiction writers engage with and critique source texts, by manipulating them and breaking their rules. Some of it is straight-up homage, but a lot of [fan fiction] is really aggressive towards the source text. […] There’s a powerful critique, almost punk-like anger, being expressed there—which I find fascinating and interesting and cool."</em></p><p>A quote from @ritshoe: <em>"Kudos to fanfiction writers for writing about all the trauma and emotional and mental turmoil that the original content creators dont acknowledge when putting characters through hell"</em></p><p>A quote from John Rogers: <em>“I think fanfic is the sign of a healthy show. Here’s what it boils down to: you’re telling me that in today’s crowded media space, our show made someone love it so much they take time out of their own life to talk about it? Holy. Crap. To be fair, I have a somewhat different attitude toward media/fans than most people. I think what TV/corporate media had wrong for a long time was how they understood the idea of a “water cooler show.” They saw it as making the audience talk about their show, on their terms. So any fan-created media is them losing control of their material. I see this more as the natural evolution of culture in a shared digital age. I will be blunt – other than the satisfaction of our own creative urges (and all that entails: the quest for perfection, artistry, craft, etc), our job in media is to give you stuff to talk about in your conversations, to integrate into your social circle in whatever way you see fit. I doubt that’s TNT’s official stance, btw, but they are much cooler about this stuff than most companies.” </em></p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/185766247585/elumish-i-could-write-a-whole-essay-about-this">The definition of fanfic</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/186440850845/wolf-girl-rin-thefriendlypigeon-yamaccino">Fanfic and copyright</a>
</p><p>A quote from Henry Jenkins: <em>"Fan fiction is a way of the culture repairing the damage done in a system where contemporary myths are owned by corporations instead of by the folk."</em></p><p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0034"><h2>34. On women writers depicting gay characters</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/160472384930/anyawen-may-shepard-hopelesslybenaddicted">Discussion on why women are drawn to m/m ships</a>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0035"><h2>35. Observations on fic culture in general</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <a href="https://us14.campaign-archive.com/home/?u=0b3c41ccca3b1f531445341f9&amp;id=bc72abb100">There's a great free newsletter on all matters fic called Spark</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/163371740430/again-its-not-just-women-and-i-really-cannot">Why fic matters for marginalised groups</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/179652945695/rules-of-a-happy-healthy-fandom">The rules of a happy, healthy fandom</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/175475105675/fic-writer-aesthetic">Fic author aesthetic</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/612050758818512896">The unwritten rules of fandom</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/185998818175/i-dont-know-who-else-to-empty-my-heart-i-joined">The frustrations of being a new person in fandom town</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/175475234090/me-do-not-post-new-chapter-today-people-have">The temptation to post a new chapter</a>
</p><p>A quote from Joss Whedon: <em>"There’s a time and place for everything, and I believe it’s called ‘fan fiction’."</em></p><p>A quote from Henry Jenkins: <em>"Fandom, after all, is born of a balance between fascination and frustration: if media content didn’t fascinate us, there would be no desire to engage with it; but if it didn’t frustrate us on some level, there would be no drive to rewrite or remake it."</em></p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/165396194840/occupational-maladies-of-fic-writers">Occupational maladies of fic writers</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/164760455305/squids-laws-of-fic-not-inclusive">Squid's law of fic</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/164646581155/sherlock-overflow-error-what-my-friends-think-i">What my friends think I've learned from fic writing vs what I have really learned from it</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/171424588725/rosy-writes-after-a-lifetime-of-being-a-writer">Writing is exhausting</a>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0036"><h2>36. Self-care as a fic writer</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/163319848450/affirmations-for-fanfic-authors">As a writer, it's okay to…</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/181945155790">Writing tips by Matt Haig</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/189879547590/whats-your-opinion-on-explaining-your-daily-life">How much is a writer obligated to tell their readers about their personal life? (answer: not a single damned bloody thing)</a>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0037"><h2>37. On being a beta and being betaed</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/175740205120/thinking-of-asking-me-to-beta-your-story">READ THIS BEFORE CONSIDERING ASKING ME TO BETA YOUR STORY</a>
</p><p>----------------------</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/165424941830/types-of-beta-reading">Types of beta readers</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/190098399400/i-always-say-in-my-notes-that-im-open-to">When being betaed starts to grate on your confidence</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/617917796160012288/you-said-when-betaing-others-i-often-point-out">On initiating a beta relationship</a>
</p><p>----------------------</p><p>
  <b>Anonymous asked: What’s the most common advice you give when you beta and what advice would you give for a new author?</b>
</p><p>Here’s what just might be my top three advice for betaees:</p><ol>
<li>Milk the angst. Identify your greatest, angstiest/porniest/other type of most feels-inducing scenes, and pound them with your typewriter until they SHINE.</li>
<li>A plot is NOT the same as a theme, and most of the time a story needs both.</li>
<li>Every scene should serve the big picture. Is this scene just fun to have, or does it serve the plot or the themes?</li>
<li>Identify the _conflict_ in the story. What is the thing that will produce tension which will then be resolved? This is connected to  plot vs theme. Theme is where you want to get, plot is how you make that journey.</li>
</ol><p>As for advice for a new Sherlock author:</p><ol>
<li>Don’t be discouraged by the sheer volume and quality of Sherlock fic already and constantly published. We all started from somewhere, and I see first-timer fics all the time that I absolutely fall in love with.</li>
<li>Learn to use AO3 tags and content warnings. This will ensure that your readers find you.</li>
<li>Talk to people. Tell them about what you do. This is a huge fandom, so it’s easy to get lost in the white noise. Nobody will think you’re self-serving if you comment on a tumblr thread asking for certain kinds of stories and point out you’ve written one.</li>
<li>Get to know what’s already been written. If you’re writing a scenario which has been done plenty of times before, take some time to work out what your angle to it is. Why does one more version of it need to be told?</li>
<li>Rome wasn’t built in a day. The best way to find readers is to write, write and write. Don’t expect to become a household name in a month.</li>
<li>Don’t use “hee hee I suck at summaries” as a summary, unless you want a guarantee that everyone will skip your story. I see this ALL THE TIME! I would also not recommend mentioning a story is your first fic. If it’s good, then that piece of information is irrelevant; if it’s not that good, that mention won’t save it. </li>
<li>If you welcome constructive criticism, say so. If you don’t, definitely say so. It’s your right to decide what sort of interaction you want with your fellow fans, if any. I do encourage new authors to interact with their readers; it can have a huge impact on word-of-mouth getting round that there’s a new, skilled player in town.</li>
<li>A good author can sell <em>anything</em>. Don’t be afraid of kinky, wonky, or unique ideas. If you love it, that love will show in the story, and the readers will all love it, too.</li>
<li>Exercise sensible caution when revealing personal details. There are some frightening people in this fandom and they can be difficult to recognise at first.</li>
<li>Have fun. That’s what it’s all about. I have found the experience of writing for this fandom the best thing I have ever experienced, period. The level of devotion, humour, support and cleverness is unparalleled, and this ain’t my first fandom rodeo.</li>
</ol><p><br/>--------------------------</p><p>
  <br/>
  <b>Anonymous asked: Are you available for betareading?</b>
</p><p>In theory, yes, but I’ve set a max limit of three simultaneous beta projects. </p><p>Whether I will say yes also depends on the fic – whether I think I can be of use and if the subject matter and genre are something I find interesting or enticing. I’m very willing to tackle many different pairings and genres, but for steamy porn tweaking I’m not your girl since I am but a fledgling beginner in writing such things. I am also not a native English speaker, so if a grammar nazi is what someone is after, that’s also not me.</p><p>What I can do is bring in my medical expertise, my knowledge and experience of depicting ASD and SPD, my experience in planning, constructing and editing multi-chapter stories, building emotional arcs and character development arcs and maximising the angst and miscommunication and the pining. I also know quite a bit about some random stuff such as ufology, scuba diving and so on, so don’t be afraid to ask if you think I might be the right beta reader for you.</p><p>As a beta, it’s important for me to respect the fact that it’s the author’s story, not mine; on the other hand I will not shy away from making suggestions concerning significant changes and new concepts, if the author wants me to do so.</p><p>Tech and schedule stuff: I will gladly work with word files or use Google Docs, either is fine. I can work fast and quick when required, but won’t get annoyed if your fic project takes quite a while. It’s all fine.</p><p>What I’ll want to know right away are these things: which aspects of the story do you want assistance on, and why do you think I’d be the right person to offer that. <b>So, if you’ve got a story you’d like me to have a look at, ask away! </b>The worst that can happen is that I’ll say no. Even in that case I might be able to connect you to another potential beta. </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0038"><h2>38. Starting out as a fic writer</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>Don't expect popularity to just fall into your lap.</b>
</p><p>I was lucky to get 400 hits on my first ten stories under my first pen name. No review blog ever mentioned them. I had 20 tumblr followers. </p><p>We all gotta start somewhere, and (unfortunately) while writing profusely will get you somewhere, it may not get you to the big leagues. That will require exactly the sort of proactive approach and HARD WORK that has been outlined in this conversation. Sometimes a well-known reccer will discover a phenomenal work which will then spread like wildfire and become an instant fandom classic, but for many big names it has been more of a chipping away at it -type of thing. It was easier to get noticed back when there weren’t thousands upon thousands of Sherlock fic authors. I chipped away at it for YEARS, and I’m still having a really hard time believing where that has taken me.</p><p>There were eighty-three new Sherlock fics published at AO3 last week, plus a lot more on LiveJournal, Tumblr and ff.net. Yes, there is fierce competition, and if you are writing only because you want comments and to see the reader number climb, that motivation will likely not carry you through to where you want to go.</p><p>I write, because it’s what I enjoy and what my brain compulsively forces me to do. There’s a story in there that needs out, and that’s what helps me forget about the pressure and the competition and to just do my own thing. The writing needs to be the main thing and not the meta hoohaa surrounding it. You write, and even just one person connecting with it is a miracle and the best feeling in the world. (from <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/169179598950/well-you-hardly-knew-her">this Tumblr discussion</a>)</p><p><br/>------------------------</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>Anonymous asked: I've written my first fic but I'm really worried about osting it. How did you pluck up the courage to do so and have you got any advice for a newbie?</b>
</p><p>What a fantastic question! It’s been such a long time since I posted my very first story online that I don’t remember my motivation or the level of my nervousness all that well, but I was pretty young and probably lacking the self-criticism that plagues me now that I’m not a complete unknown in this fandom anymore.<br/><br/>I do have some advice. There are some things I often see fledgling authors doing which are understandable but may demolish the number of potential readers.<br/><br/><b>1. Hold your horses. </b><br/>Do not publish a chapter draft the minute you add the last comma. Let it simmer. Have someone provide constructive criticism. Edit it:  weed out typos, hone your characterisation and consider how this beginning will work in the grander context of the story. I would advice most newbie writers to finish drafting the entire story before posting a single word, because getting some nice feedback on chapter one may already provide enough reward that the rest will never materialise.  </p><p><b>2. Put effort into the title and the summary.<br/></b>Do not call it “Untitled Sherlock fic” or use “I suck at summaries this is my first fic pleeeeeease read and comment” as a summary. Think about movie titles and trailers: your summary (and the tags) is all the reader has to go on when judging if they want to read your story or one of the other 78465743 fics in the fandom.<br/><br/><b>3. Find a beta reader/editor.</b><br/>This could be a friend, a fellow author, a fellow sherlockian or even your spouse. We are bind to our own typos and other mistakes, and a fresh pair of eyes can also spot plot holes. It’s useful but not absolutely necessary that your beta is very familiar with the fandom you’re writing in.</p><p><b>4. Read a lot of fic before posting your own.</b><br/>Learn about the tropes, the conventions and what has been done before. Do not let it discourage you if someone has written a fic about the same subject matter before (I’d be the first one to say that the world definitely needs as many medical H&amp;C fics as possible), but it may be a good idea to make sure you’re not accidentally replicating something. Being aware of tropes helps you to either avoid them or to make good use of them. Platonic bedsharing turning into awkward stiffies, anyone? </p><p><b>5. Make use of AO3 tags, pick a proper rating and use those trigger warnings. </b><br/>Some tags are more popular than others. To find out what tags have been standardised, use the “browse tags” option at ao3 and filter by fandom. Tags are fun - you can play with them by adding metacommentary after the standard ones.<br/><br/>The AO3 FAQ has good pointers on picking the right rating; don’t be shy about picking a higher one – as a matter of fact, Explicit is very, very popular among readers!<br/><br/>We could argue endlessly about what can reasonably be considered triggering and what is not that, but I would advice triggering not only explicitly described things but also emotional/psychological torture and manipulation. Moriarty showing up can also be triggering to a lot of folks so don’t forget to add him to the character list if he’s going to pop by. </p><p><b>6. If you’re iffy about criticism, tell it to your readers.</b><br/>We are giving fandom the wonderful products of our creative mind for free. In exchange for this, I personally feel that we have the right to decide what sort of interaction we want with our readers. Some authors deal with things in their stories they have personal experience of and a careless word of criticism can be devastating. If you suspect your confidence as a fledgling fic author might suffer a lot from seeing critical comments posted, it’s absolutely fine to say that you would prefer criticism only via PM or email or not at all. When you post a story for all to see, you are potentially subjecting yourself to a lot of attention. I have been treated well in this fandom and I hope you will be, too, but there are douchebags on the internet – it <em>is</em> the internet, after all. </p><p><b>7. You are not your story.</b><br/>Your story is a labour of love, and it really hurts when someone dislikes it and tells it to your eFace. This is not a reflection on your value as a human being or a fan or a writer – beauty is in the eye of the beholder when it comes to creative stuff. Think about stories you haven’t liked all that much – they probably have a lot of devoted fans. If someone doesn’t like your story, there’s plenty of other stuff for them to read. It’s okay to even point this out to them if you encounter an obnoxious troll. “Don’t like - don’t read and shut up” is a good piece of advice for anyone considering leaving anything but positive comments or constructive criticism on a story. It’s okay to delete mean comments. You don’t deserve them.</p><p><b>8. Don’t compare yourself too much to others.</b><br/>Easier said than done, eh? I have seen short stories written by first-time authors in this fandom that have been absolutely wonderful. Don’t let your newbie status discourage you. Sure, there are folks in this fandom who are <em>frighteningly</em> good and talented and not a day goes by when I don’t wish I could be some of those people. Writing is like any other skill – it can be honed and practiced and fine-tuned and that’s part of the fun – you’re never perfect. Every story you write will teach you new things and I guarantee that in a fandom this size, every story of yours will find friends.</p><p> </p><p>-------------------</p><p>
  <br/>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/166363820350/asynca-behind-every-finished-story-is-a-writer">What's behind every story</a>
</p><p><br/>-------------------</p><p>
  <b>Anonymous asked: I read your recent good advice on how to encourage commentary. I was wondering what you would consider to be the commonest mistakes beginner authors make when they start putting their fics out there?</b>
</p><p>- Being so impatient and eager to get their first chapter out there that once they get the first raw draft done, they publish right away.</p><p>- Unless they have enough writing experience to know that the law of diminishing returns won’t curb their enthusiasm for continuing and finishing the story, I would advice new authors to at least make a plan for the rest of the story before publishing the first chapter. I know this is a controversial thing and plenty of people work best when they have the slight pressure of an expectant readership pushing them to write, but on the other hand there are tons of forever-abandoned WIPs with just one chapter which has to illustrate that at least some authors have succumbed to this issue.</p><p>- Getting discouraged and stopping writing because their first story doesn’t hit the reader numbers of established, prolific authors like SilentAuror. It takes time, a bit of polite PR work and in most cases, lots of engagement with the readers to get there. Take actors: nobody gets signed to headline a Marvel production as their first job. You gotta grind down in the fringes first.</p><p>- Underestimating the power of a good summary, an original title and the tag function of AO3. There are thousands and thousands of Sherlock stories published every year at AO3, and readers will mercilessly scroll past anything that doesn’t at least try to grab their interest. Would <em>you </em>click on a story called “<em>Sherlock and John go on a date</em>” with a summary stating: “<em>so this is my first fic LOL I think I suck at summaries</em>”?</p><p>- Not finding a beta reader and/or proofreader. A Britpicker is often also a good idea, especially for a non-native speaker, and a medical beta might do a lot for a fic that’s heavy with that sort of content. A good beta reader will kick your arse, encourage you, help you plug your plotholes, assist in developing your themes, remind you of pertinent canon and provide an outsider’s view of the big picture of your story. Plus, it’s nice not to be alone in a hobby that is, at most, the greatest fun a person can have with pants on, and at its worst a jogging club in hell.</p><p>- Not establishing ground rules with readers in their author’s notes, if they worry about their own reactions to negative feedback. Writing is a very personal thing, and stuff people say about our stories can easily pierce through our armour and kill our desire to ever look at the draft again. Someone who doesn’t have the thick skin developed through years of fic writing and slowly building their confidence can easily can burned this way. You can use author’s notes to tell your readers what kind of and how you want feedback. It is YOUR RIGHT to define what is acceptable, because you are giving your readers a wonderful gift of a story. If you don’t want constructive criticism, say so. If you only want it privately, you can say that as well. If someone directs toxic comments at  you, don’t engage—delete. Don’t feed the trolls, that will only discourage them. Some people comment on stories not because they like reading fic but because they are taking out something bad in their own lives on people who have nothing to do with those things. You, as an author, do not deserve to be the target of that. It’s also okay to dismiss commentary that is clearly just based on personal preference rather than objective analysis; for instance, if someone tells you they didn’t like your story because it was johnlock or mollstrade or whatever when you had <em>clearly</em> labelled it as such, go tell them to suck a sock. They were told what they were in for.</p><p> </p><p>-----------------------</p><p>
  <b>Anonymous asked: I had a question for you. Your write these amazing, lengthy fics that are so phenomenal. I have only ever written shorter fics but I want to write longer fics. Do you have any advice for someone like me who wants to write longer fic but doesn't know where to start? Thanks so much in advance, as well as for all you do.</b>
</p><p>Good question. I can’t generalise based on just my own experiences, but I started with short stories which sort of got organically gradually longer as I learned more about writing and began to conjure up more complex plotlines. That’s how it seems to have worked for at least some other authors, too, based on looking at their early stuff versus their later stories. I still occasionally write short and medium length pieces, too, and instead of purposefully aiming for a certain length, I’d advice letting the plot select its word count. Some plots and themes are best explored in novel form, some pack the most punch as much shorter stories. A first kiss? Certainly a shorter piece. A progression from friends to the first morning after having sex? Perhaps a medium-length one. The entire progress of a relationship from tentative interest to a permanent commitment? Maybe novel-length.</p><p><br/>----------------------</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/179038655570/i-feel-like-im-just-not-good-at-writing-long">How to shift towards writing longer stories and how to allow stories to choose their own length</a>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0039"><h2>39. Things that have influenced me</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/165735285505/what-made-you-like-this-the-sherlock-fics">The Sherlock fics that have influenced me the most</a>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0040"><h2>40. On writing angst and hurt/comfort</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/166511298715/fic-angst-levels">Levels of angst</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/610958086337855488/kimuracarter-hippity-hoppity-brigade">On the nature of hurt/comfort</a>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0041"><h2>41. On co-authoring</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>Anonymous asked: Me and two friends were thinking about writing a story together (we've each written fic before, but none of us have done any about Sherlock yet). Any advice on the technical parts of writing together? How do you and Sevenpercentsolution do it?</strong>
</p>
<p>Wow - 3 authors together? There might some logistical challenges related to that which I might not be able to anticipate based on my experiences of co-authoring with just one person, but the basics are probably the same.</p>
<p><b>Consider what each of your strengths are and what you can bring to the table. </b>Co-authoring is a fabulous way to step out of one’s comfort zone and to learn from others. Sharing a writing project can also be complicated and sometimes frustrating, and I would predict it could also potentially lead to conflicts, since writing is a very personal endeavour. If one is good at writing action, one good with dialogue etc, use your strengths. </p>
<p><b>Make a plan on who does what and when. </b>Agreeing on individual assignments will help avoid two people doing the same thing and then ending up with alternate versions of one scene. Sometimes those can be combined, though. </p>
<p><b>Agree on what you want to achieve with a story and what the themes are. </b>If one is writing an adventure, the other a tragedy and the third a kinky character study, you might end up sounding like you took turns writing the chapters/scenes. That could be an interesting, anthology-type structure, but I doubt that’s really what you had in mind.</p>
<p><b>Edit and contribute to each other’s chapters/scenes. </b>Let the other two play around with what you have provided as a starting point. It is the BEST feeling to see your idea take flight in the hands of someone else. This will also blend your styles together to avoid the thing I explained before about sounding like you took turns in writing bits.</p>
<p><b>Make backup copies. Establish a system of version control. </b>I’d suggesting using  Dropbox of Google Docs or a similar service that makes it easy for everyone to edit the same files. I use Dropbox with Seven and we tend to keep a timeline/chapter list document where we outline the main plot points and keep things organised. </p>
<p><b>Meet up frequently to discuss things. </b>Online or in real life. This is the fun part: getting to talk about YOUR story with people who know it as well as you do.</p>
<p><b>Be prepared to kill your darlings. </b>By  this I don’t mean your co-authors when they suggest taking out something you wrote. If you’ve worked with good betas you will have learned that sometimes the bits you like may not be useful or necessary to the story. When co-authoring it’s sometimes awkward and feels downright cruel to suggest taking something out, but it needs to be done. But, you need to explain why. </p>
<p><b>Agree on your characters’ background stories, when relevant.</b> Their past will affect the way they function now, and if you have very differing views regarding this, it will show in the text. </p>
<p><b>Have fun.</b> That’s the whole point, isn’t it? </p>
<p> </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0042"><h2>42. The conundrum of WIPs</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/170899130095/how-do-you-feel-about-authors-who-abandon-their">On the pros and cons of WIPs</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/170908588445/how-do-you-feel-about-authors-who-abandon-their">When an author abandons a WIP</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/172896438500/we-know-this-folks-or-what-not-to-do-when-you">How to support the author of your fave WIP</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/185586238675/i-have-a-fanfic-account-that-has-a-bunch-of">A writer with a very messy draft and WIP problem asks for advice</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/180275317485/i-got-a-great-question-today">Why some stories don't get completed</a>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0043"><h2>43. On music and writing</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I often have 1-3 songs which can fling me straight into a writing flow, and there’s no telling what my brain decides to connect to which story or individual chapter.  Sometimes there also seems to be a common stylistic thread connecting the genre of music I’ve listened to and the tone of a story.</p><p><b>All of my writing soundtracks can be found <a href="https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fchannel%2FUCmgy1zJpntrUwESYl3iRmXA%2Fplaylists%3Fview_as%3Dsubscriber&amp;t=YmNmMWFkMDNkYWJmODdkYmMyZDRlMjNkN2QwNjkzZTdkNTQ0NzBlMyxmNWY3NDY4NDUzNTNkMDAwOTkwY2QxNzE4NDQ5M2Q2MmU4MDU1ZjBh">HERE</a>.</b> (If I have not created a Youtube playlist, I have linked to the individual songs below.)</p><p><br/><br/>-----------------------</p><p>
  <strong>CASE STUDIES:</strong>
</p><p>
  <b>2007</b>
</p><p>My soundtrack for this was heavy on two artists: Banks and Marilyn Manson, two artists I have rarely connected to my writing. Manson in particular offered exactly the sort of bleak, cynical, frantic, self-destructive and raw atmosphere I needed. Banks’ “Trainwreck” perfectly encapsulates Sherlock in chapter 1. There’s also “Everytime” by Broods, which to me has a very Mycroft-having-a-heavy-sigh vibe.</p><p>
  <b>Smile Like A Paper Cut</b>
</p><p>If this story had a theme song, it would be “And The World Was Gone” by Snow Ghosts. Epic, apocalyptic and ethereal. When I needed to connect to the feeling of foul, empowered immortality and invincibility a serial killer might feel at the climax of a murder, I had the Ghost album <em>Meliora</em> to rely on, as well as the bitter, epic anthems of Scandi prog band Port Noir’s EPs and singles. The more tender and sad scenes were musically illustrated well by Phildel’s album “The Disappearance of The Girl”, and the infinite loss and desperation of the last chapters were perfectly framed in “All The Things Lost” by MSMR.</p><p>
  <b>Take Heart</b>
</p><p>There is a song that effectively <em>wrote</em> a scene in my head. It’s the Kate Bush cover “Running Up That Hill” by Placebo. The quiet heartbeat at the start, the hypnotic intro that reminded me of fast footsteps, and then the first verse that made me think of a circling camera following a conversation – suddenly I saw the scene in which Sherlock leaves the OR to be told that John has been injured and is fighting for his life in my mind’s eye like a movie trailer. There is also “Breathe In Water” by Anggun which was definitely Sherlock’s love theme for the story.</p><p><b>Cerebral Approaches</b> <em> [see soundtrack called “Medical Ninnies’ Club Mix”]</em></p><p><em>The</em> club scene. With Moriarty. Is definitely Madonna’s 007 song “Die Another Day”. John’s BAMF jealousy earned him several listening rounds of “Somebody Told Me” by The Killers. This story also cemented the Bonnie Tyler cover “Holding Out For A Hero” by Nothing But Thieves as my go-to tense OR scene theme song for writing this fic series.</p><p>
  <b>From Here No Lines Are Drawn</b>
</p><p>This story, filled with goodbyes and desperate pining, drugs and self-destruction, loss and rage and revenge, was very much Placebo, Skunk Anansie and Lykke Li.</p><p>
  <b>The Road of Bones</b>
</p><p>This story heavily leaned on “<a href="https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DDCCAEcuOk_g&amp;t=YzU4NWRmZDc2OTk0ZTY2OTQzZjc5M2ZjZTVkZmM5ZmM1MzdlYzUzMCwxYWEzZDFiNWFmNzY1N2YwMGIzNzU0OTkyNDhmNjAyMmRmNTAwODQ0">Graveyard Whistling</a>” and, most of all, “<a href="https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DiryBlLyxEsk&amp;t=OTkzYTk3Yjg5NjEzNzhjODMxMGM0MTU1NDY5M2FmOTM0ZTRmZDJjMyw1NGExOGY5OWUyYTU0M2RhMzdlYjEyZWRmNTM3MjMxZTBkZmY2YWQx">Emergency</a>” by Nothing But Thieves to reach the quiet panic of the story.</p><p>
  <b>On the Rack</b>
</p><p>If this was a movie and there were rolling end credits, they would feature “<em>Underneath</em>” by Adam Lambert. The lyrics are just frighteningly fitting. Fun fact: I have car karaoke’d this with @7-percent in the back of @anyawen‘s van. Kreisler’s “<em>Preludium and Allegro</em>” (my fave performance is by Itzhak Perlman) is featured in the story itself and when I hear it I am instantly flung back into the room in my Mind Palace where this fic lives. Still gives me chills to imagine Sherlock playing that piece and reclaiming a piece of his life in the process.</p><p>
  <b>Inherently Given</b>
</p><p>In the short sequel to “On the Rack”, Sherlock is pouring his soul into <a href="https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Do1dBg__wsuo&amp;t=YWM3M2YzZTI1ODg3ZTM3YzFmZDExMTRlM2ZmNjEwMzg0MmIyYWU5Yyw5OWI2YTVjZDcyYTMxMmMxNWEwYjVmOGQzNjYyNTQwOWNiZmZhMzg2">Mendelssohn’s violin concerto</a> in E minor with a symphony orchestra after getting over his nervousness with some easier pieces.</p><p>
  <b>Wait Till Victor Comes</b>
</p><p>A ghost story. Also a story about family tragedy and death and loss. What I mostly played during writing this were “No Death” by Mirel Wagner in its gory glory, the thematically fitting Hurts song “The Water” and “Mad World” by Michael Andrews &amp; Gary Jules. “The Noble Art of Letting Go” by Rebecca Karijord was used in an emotional goodbye scene in the British version of the TV series “Being Human”, and it served the writing process of the last scene of this story as well.</p><p>
  <b>Uncharted Territory</b>
</p><p>Forbidden desires and awkward courtship characterise this future-Tinder-from-hell AU. Alanis Morissette’s “Uninvited” perfectly encapsulates the temptation and London’s Grammar’s cover of Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game” painted the seduction.</p><p>
  <b>You Have Drawn Red From My Hands</b>
</p><p>Björk, duh (particularly “<a href="https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DBBju9Sdh94k&amp;t=NjI0ZjczOTBjZjBjM2I0ZmZjZjU0ODNiZDM2Y2M3OGRkNTg0MTk0NSxjMDMzMjBmM2NjZTY0YjI4MGFjNjA4MTIyYWI1M2VkYWQ3ZGUyZWRm">Joga</a>”). Plus, the story title was borrowed from a <a href="https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DT5emcbg_wZk&amp;t=M2YwNTc5YTA4ZmUzYjJlYzliZjliYTQ1NTFhNDZjYWNmNjRlYzczZSwwNDRkZWE5OTA5ZDIwOTQ5ZDdmNmZiMGQ3ZTRjYzdhNGY5YWY5MmQw">Tanita Tikaram song</a> which also spun a lot on my player.</p><p>
  <b>and finally… what remains my favourite playlist of all so far:</b>
</p><p>
  <b>A Diseased Fancy</b>
</p><p>Saint-Saens’ “Dance Macabre” provided a quirky, morbid and energetic score to this horrorific Lovecraftian love story. But, I paired the archaic with a bit of nineties nostalgia and ended up inventing violin!grunge!lock in the process. Nirvana’s “Heart-Shaped Box” was what Sherlock played to Victor Trevor, his first love, who he hadn’t seen in years. Apocalyptica’s cello covers of Metallica ballads provided a suitable mournful string score, and for the most epic romance scenes nothing else than Evanescence would do. And, Sherlock &amp; Victor’s theme was definitely Adele’s “Hello”.</p><p>My upcoming neurosciencey futuristic epic scifi military johnlock, “Drift Compatible” will get its own Youtube playlist once it’s published. Right now, that soundtrack is a bit… um… spoilerific LOL.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0044"><h2>44. On writing about (other) sketchy topics</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/171994707300/resources-for-writing-sketchy-topics">Resources for writing about various sketchy topics</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/179082075710/related-to-the-rating-issue-i-think-its-best-to">On how to choose on a rating</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/188334276940/brynwrites-something-to-repeat-to-yourself-in">Not every story is from everyone. And that is okay.</a>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0045"><h2>45. Tips on how to do things at AO3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/175601830180/heres-how-to-fix-misbehaving-chapter-1-end-notes">How to fix misbehaving chapter 1 end notes</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/175946278840/how-to-avoid-risky-tagging-choices-on-ao3">How to avoid risky tagging choices</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/175601888170/creating-a-cool-double-underlined-title-in-a">How to create a cool, underlined headline</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="http://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/175570361850/how-to-fix-ao3-line-spacing-formatting-when">How to fix wonky line spacing formatting</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="http://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/175570478440/how-to-spruce-up-your-stories-with-formatted-text">How to spruce up your stories with formatted text, links and images</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/617710046233657344/how-to-use-your-ao3-inbox-effectively">How to use your AO3 inbox effectively</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="http://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/176199070300/magical-tags-and-how-to-find-them">Magical Tags and How To Find Them</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/185603588475/i-love-reading-fanfics-and-am-grateful-to-every">How to keep up with your favourite authors</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/189923357585/kedreeva-shamelesslymkp-kedreeva">The risky business of allowing your fic to be added to collections at AO3</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/187622856630/attention-all-fic-authors-your-work-may-have-been">How to prevent your fic being stolen by Russian bots</a>
</p><p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/190104418445/sarahthecoat-totallysilvergirl">How to not mess up your formatting when posting from Google Docs to AO3</a>
</p><p> </p>
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<a name="section0046"><h2>46. On depicting different religions and ethnic groups</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/188223560125/how-to-write-fic-for-black-characters-a-guide-for">A guide to writing about Black characters for non-Black writers</a>
</p><p>A quote from Neil Gaiman on depicting groups of people the author is not a part of: <em>"As a writer of fiction part of your duty and obligation is to write characters who are not you. Write them well, write them with respect and interest. And don’t listen to anyone who tells you you aren’t allowed to write people who aren’t you. You are." </em>(from <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/181435638525/hey-neil-someone-recently-told-me-that-because">this post</a>)</p><p> </p>
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<a name="section0047"><h2>47. On anonymity</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <a href="https://jbaillier.tumblr.com/post/617789598484004864/ok-since-your-ask-box-is-always-open-i-have-a">Should an author separate their fic persona from their tumblr persona?</a>
</p>
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<a name="section0048"><h2>48. Depicting psychiatry and mental health</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p></p><div class="content">
  <p>
    <strong>Ask: Do you think Sherlock has bipolar?</strong>
  </p>
  <p>No. At least it explains very little about the way in which his behaviour and thinking differs from that of most people when he’s functioning well. I do believe canon demonstrates he suffers from mood issues / periodic depression, and very likely self-medicates with narcotics, but in my opinion we haven’t seen classic mania at all. As for depressive and mixed episodes of bipolar disorder — maybe that could be a possibility, but as I stated earlier, it would have to be comorbid with ASD instead of explaining everything on its own.</p>
  <p>Standard disclaimer: I am not a psychiatrist, and diagnosing fictional characters is sort of impossible by default. That’s why we have fic — if an author makes their case well, I can definitely enjoy a bipolar interpretation of Sherlock. <em>The Four Corners of The Western World</em> series by pennypaperbrain is excellent, for example.</p>
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<a name="section0049"><h2>49. Resources on depicting male sartorial goodness and sherlockian grooming habits</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><a href="https://88thparallel.tumblr.com/post/166293377809/so-since-im-on-the-topic-of-curly-hair-and-it?is_related_post=1">An outstanding guide to the care of Sherlock's type of hair</a> </p><p>An <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0500292612/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_taft_p1_i0">excellent book</a> on Savile Row tailors</p><p>An <a href="https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/gq-style-news-dress-like-sherlock-holmes-and-dr-watson">interview in GQ magazine</a> on the sartorial art of the TV series</p><p>A <a href="https://holmestice.dreamwidth.org/575673.html">porny guide to the necessities</a> of a Victorian gentleman's outfit</p><p><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/10/the-life-and-fashion-of-sherlock/381711/">An article in The Atlantic</a> about Sherlock as a style icon</p>
<hr/><p>The tailor choices for Sherlock, Mycroft and Moriarty are poignant characterisation-wise. For Sherlock the production team chose Spencer Hart who is (was) one of the more recent London star tailors. A sleek, contemporary style fit for someone who doesn't blend in. In contrast, Mycroft wears the very traditionalist Gieves &amp; Hawkes. One of the oldest continual bespoke tailoring companies in the world, they hold numerous royal warrants and produce a lot of military issue tailoring as well.</p><p>Moriarty, as we have been informed by the man himself, wears Vivienne Westwood. The lady may have some age, but she's still all about punk. She is a fashion anarchist largely responsible for bringing modern punk and new wave into mainstream fashion. Fun fact: my only designer handbag is a fuchsia Vivienne Westwood.</p>
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